The Telephone Survey Research Laboratory was established in 1995. Its mission is to provide professional support services to researchers and social organizations intending to use telephone surveys for their research. It also regularly conducts opinion polls on issues of public interest and releases the results to the public so as to serve as a bridge linking the University and the public. Moreover, the Laboratory values the importance of knowledge transfer and aims to improve the public’s understanding of social research (especially of opinion polls).

The Laboratory is currently equipped with 60 telephone workstations that can operate simultaneously to handle large samples. It is one of the largest telephone survey research units in the academia.

Since 1995, the Laboratory has completed more than 1,200 projects. Most of these projects consisted of telephone surveys; however, the Laboratory also provides support services for other types of survey methodologies, such as data entry and analysis for self-administered questionnaires (mailed surveys, online surveys, and so on), household interviews, focus group discussions, and content analysis.

Over the past five years (i.e., from Jan 2012 to December 2016), the Laboratory completed a total of 282 projects. As a supporting research unit in the Institute, the commissioned surveys have mainly come from the Institute’s research centres, followed by other departments/research units in CUHK and governmental departments/public bodies. Moreover, some NGOs/NPOs, commercial units, and mass media organizations have commissioned the Laboratory to conduct opinion polls and surveys on different topics.

In order to enhance public engagement, apart from providing support services to researchers and organizations intending to use telephone surveys to facilitate their research, the Laboratory also carries out some self-financed projects on public issues and presents the survey results to the public, so as to serve as a link between the University and the public. To fulfil that mission, our research team holds regular meetings every month to discuss research themes, design questionnaires, and launch an opinion poll. After the poll, we will send the results of the survey to the mass media by means of a press release. We will also write and release articles on public issues by using the data collected from the polls to facilitate communication and interaction with the community.