First of all, many thanks to those that took the time to fill in the survey. The survey among our members revealed that our members were satisfied to very satisfied with most of the services and activities of the association. The following picture emerges from the data.

Most of our members hear about EAIR through colleagues within their higher education institution or country. Many EAIR members are regularly attending the annual forums: e.g. almost 40% attended at least five of the twelve past forums. The key interests of our members in EAIR are to learn about developments in higher education, to network, to attend presentations and key notes and to present papers/posters. The topics members are most interested in are: quality assurance (56%), institutional research (55%), leadership and institutional governance (54%), and management (51%).

As said, most of the activities are rated as being "above average". Relatively speaking, the Annual General Meeting (average 3.37 on a five-point scale), the Special Interest Groups (3.49) and web site (3.49) are rated as least satisfactory. But the monograph series (3.93), the forum banquet (3.92), the EAIR seminars (3.79) and the overall quality of papers in Tertiary Education and Management (3.78) are rated as most satisfactory. In general terms, 60% of EAIR members think the quality of our activities is the same or has improved over the years. 55% respond "average" to the question of value for money and 39% think this is "above average/excellent".

The main strengths of the association are: creating the opportunity for networking, offering content quality, and respecting and stimulating diversity. The weaknesses can be brought together under the headings: poor keynotes, high costs, lack of focus, and poor presentations.

We are obviously happy with the results that generally indicate that EAIR is delivering up to the standards, or actually better than that. But we also realise that we must continue to improve. The key pointers for improvement, emerging from the answers to the survey, are to create even more time/space at the forum to allow for the exchange of ideas, networking, and other interactive activities; and to consider broadening the portfolio of activities we organise, including activities throughout the year, independently from the annual forum.

The full survey results can be downloaded here.

With many thanks,
EAIR Executive Committee