Acknowledgements

British Social Attitudes could not take place without its many generous funders. A number of government departments have regularly funded modules of interest to them, while respecting the independence of the study. In 2013 we gratefully acknowledge the support of the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Transport, the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Government Equalities Office and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. 

Thanks are also due to the King’s Fund, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Unbound Philanthropy, the Trust for London, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund.

The ESRC continued to support the participation of Britain in the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), a collaboration whereby surveys in over 40 countries administer an identical module of questions in order to facilitate comparative research. Some of the results are described in our National identity chapter. 

We are also grateful to Professor Richard Topf of London Metropolitan University for all his work in creating and maintaining access to an easy to use website that provides a fully searchable database of all the questions that have ever been carried on a British Social Attitudes survey, together with details of the pattern of responses to every question. This site provides an invaluable resource for those who want to know more than can be found in this report. It is located at www.britsocat.com.

The British Social Attitudes survey is a team effort. The report editors could not do their job without the invaluable editorial support provided by the BSA senior researcher, Ian Simpson. The survey is heavily dependent too on staff who organise and monitor fieldwork and compile and distribute the survey’s extensive documentation, for which we would pay particular thanks to Emma Fenn and her colleagues in NatCen’s administrative office in Brentwood. Thanks are also due to the fieldwork controllers, area managers and field interviewers who are responsible for all the interviewing, and without whose efforts the survey would not happen at all. We are also grateful to Sue Corbett in our computing department who expertly translates our questions into a computer assisted questionnaire, and to Roger Stafford who has the unenviable task of editing, checking and documenting the data. Many thanks are also due to Soapbox who worked with us on producing the report. 

Finally, we must praise all the people who anonymously gave up their time to take part in one of our surveys over the last thirty years, not least those who participated in 2013. They are the cornerstone of this enterprise. We hope that some of them might come across this report and read about themselves and the story they tell of modern Britain with interest.