World Values Survey

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World Values Survey

Founded	1981; 43 years ago (1981) (registered as the non-profit World Values Survey Association in Stockholm, Sweden)
Type	Non-profit association
Location	Presidency & Secretariat in Vienna, Austria (Institute for Comparative Survey Research) External Relations Office in Stockholm, Sweden (Institute for Future Studies) Archive in Madrid, Spain (JDS Surveys)
Key people	President: Christian Haerpfer (Austria) Vice President: Alejandro Moreno (Mexico), Christian Welzel (Germany) Secretary General: Bi Puranen (Sweden) Treasurer: Alejandro Moreno (Mexico) Members: Pippa Norris (US), Marta Lagos (Chile), Eduard Ponarin (Russia) Founding President: Ronald Inglehart (US) Archive Director: Jaime Diez-Medrano (Spain)
Website	www.worldvaluessurvey.org

The World Values Survey (WVS) is a global research project that explores people's values and beliefs, how they change over time, and what social and political impact they have. Since 1981 a worldwide network of social scientists have conducted representative national surveys as part of WVS in almost 100 countries.

The WVS measures, monitors and analyzes: support for democracy, tolerance of foreigners and ethnic minorities, support for gender equality, the role of religion and changing levels of religiosity, the impact of globalization, attitudes toward the environment, work, family, politics, national identity, culture, diversity, insecurity, and subjective well-being.

The findings provide information for policy makers seeking to build civil society and democratic institutions in developing countries.^{[citation needed]} The work is also frequently used by governments around the world, scholars, students, journalists and international organizations and institutions such as the World Bank and the United Nations (UNDP and UN-Habitat). Data from the World Values Survey have (for example) been used to better understand the motivations behind events such as the Arab Spring, the 2005 French civil unrest, the Rwandan genocide in 1994 and the Yugoslav wars and political upheaval in the 1990s. ^{[citation needed]}

Romano Prodi, former Prime Minister of Italy and the tenth President of the European Commission, said about WVS work:

The growing globalization of the world makes it increasingly important to understand ... diversity. People with varying beliefs and values can live together and work together productively, but for this to happen it is crucial to understand and appreciate their distinctive worldviews.^[1]