Centrum Badania Opinii Społecznej (CBOS) (Centre for Public Opinion Research) is an opinion poll

Opinion poll

An opinion poll, sometimes simply referred to as a poll is a survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of questions and then extrapolating generalities in ratio or within confidence...

ing institute in Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

, based in Warsaw

Warsaw

Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

. Originally established in communist Poland in 1982, it has operated as a non-profit public foundation

Foundation (charity)

A foundation is a legal categorization of nonprofit organizations that will typically either donate funds and support to other organizations, or provide the source of funding for its own charitable purposes....

 created by a special law since 1997 (Ustawy o fundacji Centrum Badania Opinii Społecznej z dn. 20 lutego 1997 r., Dz.U. nr 30, poz. 163). Its statutory purpose is to provide data on the population's opinion regarding political and social issues. Major Polish newspapers and news magazines, such as Gazeta Wyborcza

Gazeta Wyborcza

Gazeta Wyborcza is a leading Polish newspaper. It covers the gamut of political, international and general news. Like all the Polish newspapers, it is printed on compact-sized paper, and is published by the multimedia corporation Agora SA...

, Rzeczpospolita

Rzeczpospolita (newspaper)

Rzeczpospolita is a Polish national daily newspaper, with a circulation around of 160,000. Issued every day except Sunday. Rzeczpospolita was printed in broadsheet format, then switched to compact at October 16, 2007...

, and Polityka

Polityka

Polityka is a centre-left weekly newsmagazine in Poland. With a circulation of 170,000 it is the country's biggest selling weekly, ahead of Newsweek's Polish edition and Wprost. Today, the magazine has a slightly intellectual, social liberal profile, setting it apart from the more conservative...

, regularly commission CBOS to conduct polls. Apart from its public function, CBOS also conducts commercial market research to help finance its operations.

CBOS conducts a monthly survey on a representative sample of 1,000 adult persons entitled "Current Problems and Events" (Aktualne problemy i wydarzenia). The findings are published on a monthly basis and made available on the internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

 with a one-month delay (since 1998). Each monthly report focuses on a specific topic, with certain topics recurring in regular intervals. An abridged English-language newsletter, entitled "Polish Public Opinion" and containing summaries of results on various topics, is also available online and free of charge. In total, CBOS publishes more than 200 reports and books each year.

CBOS employs a staff of 40+ sociologists

Sociology

Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

, economists

Economics

Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...

, statisticians

Statistics

Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....

, and computer scientists

Computer science

Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...

 at its seat in Warsaw, and a nationwide network of interviewers. CBOS's work is supervised by a board established per the 1997 law, consisting of seven academic experts appointed by the council of ministers

Council of Ministers of Poland

The Cabinet of Poland consists of the Prime Minister and ministers. Deputy Prime Ministers and presidents of committees specified in statutes may also be appointed to the Cabinet...

 the and representatives of the Sejm

Sejm

The Sejm is the lower house of the Polish parliament. The Sejm is made up of 460 deputies, or Poseł in Polish . It is elected by universal ballot and is presided over by a speaker called the Marshal of the Sejm ....

, the Senate

Senate of Poland

The Senate is the upper house of the Polish parliament, the lower house being the 'Sejm'. The history of the Polish Senate is rich in tradition and stretches back over 500 years, it was one of the first constituent bodies of a bicameral parliament in Europe and existed without hiatus until the...

, the prime minister, and the president.