INDEPENDENT NON GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION YURI LEVADA ANALYTICAL CENTER

Their core work

The Levada Center is Russia's leading independent sociological research organization, conducting public opinion polls, social surveys, and empirical studies on Russian society, politics, and economy. In the H2020 context, they contributed regional expertise on the post-Soviet space — providing access to survey infrastructure, fieldwork capabilities, and deep institutional knowledge of Russia and neighboring countries that European academic partners cannot easily replicate. Their value in research consortia is as an on-the-ground data source and analytical lens for understanding social, economic, and political dynamics across Eurasia. Both of their EU project contributions focused on using this expertise to inform doctoral training and research exchanges on Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Russia.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In 2015–2018, their H2020 engagement centered on international development, geopolitical cooperation, and the Caspian region as a zone of strategic interest — supporting doctoral training on how nations and institutions interact across this contested space. By 2018–2023, the focus narrowed and deepened into the internal social fabric of post-Soviet economies, specifically how informality and shadow practices shape everyday business and life. The shift moves from external (inter-state relations, cooperation, development frameworks) to internal (how economies actually function beneath the surface in Russia and its neighbors).

They are moving toward empirical social science on economic informality in Russia and Central Asia — a niche that will remain in demand as long as European researchers need credible inside-access data on these hard-to-study societies.

How they like to work

The Levada Center joins consortia exclusively as a third-party or partner — never as coordinator — which reflects both their non-academic status and their role as a regional knowledge provider rather than a grant-managing institution. Despite only two projects, they connected with 26 partners across 23 countries, suggesting they plug into large, internationally diverse consortia where their unique Russia/Eurasia access is a specific gap to fill. Working with them likely means a clean, scoped arrangement: they supply data, fieldwork access, or expert input while European universities handle project management.

Their two projects brought them into contact with 26 unique consortium partners spread across 23 countries — an unusually wide geographic footprint for just two participations, reflecting the transnational nature of both MSCA consortia they joined. Their network is centered on European social science and area studies institutions with a shared interest in Eurasia.

What sets them apart

The Levada Center is the only major independent polling and sociological research institute based in Russia with a track record of contributing to EU-funded research — a combination that is rare and increasingly geopolitically constrained. For any consortium studying Russian society, public opinion, informal institutions, or post-Soviet transitions, they offer something no Western organization can: legitimate, field-level access to data from inside Russia. Their independence from the Russian state (a status they have defended under significant pressure) is itself a form of credibility that matters to EU-funded social science.

Highlights from their portfolio

• SHADOW
  A 5-year MSCA-RISE project (2018–2023) exploring informal economies across the former USSR — one of the few H2020 projects to directly study shadow practices and business informality in post-Soviet states, topics rarely accessible to European researchers without local partners.
• CASPIAN
  An MSCA-ITN doctoral training network building the next generation of European experts on Caspian-region development and cooperation, with the Levada Center providing Russian-side expertise in a geopolitically significant multi-country region.