About What Scotland Thinks

What Scotland Thinks provides impartial, up-to-date information on public attitudes to Scottish independence. Whether you are a journalist, academic, campaigner or interested member of the public, this is the place to come for poll and survey data on the up-coming referendum.

Our blog offers impartial commentary on public opinions by academic and media commentator Professor John Curtice, plus regular contributions from guest bloggers. Data from all relevant opinion polls since 2007 can also explored online. We have created a tool which allows you to find poll and survey results by topic then delve further into the data, comparing results over time by different polling companies. No special expertise or software are needed.

Who runs this website

What Scotland Thinks is run by the Scottish Centre for Social Research (ScotCen). We are part of National Centre of Social Research (NatCen) which is Britain’s leading independent social research agency. We are a not-for-profit and non-partisan organisation. The aim of the site is to help make polling and survey data on the Scottish independence debate more accessible to the general public.

More about ScotCen

Scottish Centre for Social Research (ScotCen) is an independent research institute located in Edinburgh, part of the National Centre for Social Research and the largest such institute in Britain. We undertake a wide range of social research throughout Scotland in the belief that the more we understand about how we live today, the better our ability to make life better. ScotCen uses a variety of ways to find out what people think how they feel, ranging from big surveys of the general population to in-depth interviews with key individuals. We address subjects ranging from heath, education and crime to politics.

As a not for profit organisation and a registered educational charity, we are politically impartial and have no particular commercial agenda to pursue. Rather, our commitment is to undertaking our research to the highest possible standards and to disseminating it as widely as possible.