• make an inventory of the contextual variables that are used in cross national comparative research on electoral behaviour;
• collect these data for the electoral contexts included in the pilot study;
• ensure that the data can be linked to the other data collected in this design study

The contextual data are aggregate macro data of economic, social, cultural, political and (probably) purely geographical nature.  Hence, they are complementary data that will link with the other collection efforts. The exact character of the data will be decided in consultation with the user community and with the other data teams. We thus invite suggestions and proposals on data that should be collected as well as the most appropriate data sources.

Political data  may consist on information on of electoral laws and party system characteristics  in all 27 countries, whereas economic factors may include economic indicators Other socio-cultural data could also be collected on, for example, ethnic and religious fractionalisation.  These are only possible suggestion, and the team welcomes any proposals on what to include and exclude in the contextual data component (cf Open Forum).

Once the inventory of the contextual data has been made and approved, this information will be collected and a report provided on the sources used to collect these data. Once collected, coded and cleaned ,we will make the data and associated codebook publicly available.

During the final phases of the design study, the team will evaluate the pilot study and provide a report that will outline technical and design aspects of the pilot study. This evaluation will eventually feed into the final conceptual design report.