An independent institute for shared perceptions
An institute that holds public debate to the standard of evidence.
Founding and purpose
IRISP® was founded in 2026 to measure the distance between perception and evidence.
The belief about what the majority thinks and what the majority actually thinks can be measured separately; the difference between the two is not an impression but a quantity that can be shown as a number. The Founding Charter and the Research Programme 2026–2028 are in open access.
- August 4, 2026
Founding Charter and Working Principles
- August 8, 2026
Survey Ethics and Anonymisation: The IRISP® Protocol
- August 26, 2026
IRISP® Research Programme 2026–2028
- Q4 2026
First measurement round opens
Alptürk KAYA, Atty.
Secretary General
The institute's subject is not who is right, but the distance between perception and evidence. A risk can be held to be larger than it is, an institution less trustworthy than it is, an opinion more widespread than it is. As long as that distance goes unrecorded, public debate runs on assumptions; once it is recorded, what is disputed is at least a shared number.
Every finding from the institute's own programme is therefore published open access, together with the instrument, the sample definition and the method note. Instruments are reviewed before publication by a board independent of the executive. The result of commissioned work stays with the client; the method is the same in every case and passes the same review.
The full message Show less
What counts as the majority view in a society is usually taken for granted rather than asked. Yet the belief about what the majority thinks and what the majority actually thinks can be measured separately; the difference between the two is not an impression but a quantity that can be shown as a number. IRISP® was founded to measure that difference.
The institute's subject is not who is right, but the distance between perception and evidence. A risk can be held to be larger than it is, an institution less trustworthy than it is, an opinion more widespread than it is. As long as that distance goes unrecorded, public debate runs on assumptions; once it is recorded, what is disputed is at least a shared number.
Every finding from the institute's own programme is therefore published open access, together with the instrument, the sample definition and the method note. Instruments are reviewed before publication by a board independent of the executive. The result of commissioned work stays with the client; the method is the same in every case and passes the same review.
The first measurement round opens in the last quarter of 2026. Everything published until then is programmatic or methodological: the institute is not yet reporting what it has found, but how it will measure. The same rule holds once the first findings arrive — a number published without its method does not count as a finding of this institute.
Yours sincerely,
Notes and reservations
No findings have been published yet. Everything published to date is programmatic or methodological. The first measurement round opens in Q4 2026; until then the institute reports on how it will measure, not on what it has found.
The method travels with the figure. No result is released without its instrument, sample definition and method note. A figure separated from its method is not an IRISP® finding, whoever quotes it.
Individual records are never released. Only aggregate results are published. The anonymisation protocol is itself an open-access document, so the procedure can be examined independently of any single study.
What the institute does not do. No persuasion work and no election forecasting. The institute measures perceptions — for its own programme and, on commission, for institutions. It does not design campaigns, messages or targeting to change them, and it returns any commission whose question is written to produce a predetermined answer.
Boards and volunteer contribution. The Board, the Advisory Board and the Scientific Board have written terms of reference; their seats are not yet filled, and names are published here as appointments are made. Volunteer contributions in translation, data checking, field observation, software and review reading are offered by writing to info@irisp.org.
Funding and independence
The institute’s revenue model has three components: donations; payments by clients for commissioned studies; and funds obtained within projects. Each component is shown separately in the annual register; a source is named only with its consent.
Current position: during its founding phase the institute is financed from its founders’ own resources and from income earned on commissioned studies. No donation or project fund has yet been received; when one is, this section and the annual register are updated.
No source can affect decisions on method, interpretation or publication. A donation cannot be tied to a particular finding or agenda; a donation that expects a particular result is not accepted. The client cannot alter the published instrument and protocol; the decision to publish a finding rests with it, responsibility for method and interpretation with the institute. A project funder accepts in the contract that it will not intervene in method or results.
Members of the directorate and of the scientific board declare, together with their appointment, any tie that could affect a study; a member with a tie that could affect a review recuses, and the recusal is recorded.
This section is updated once a year. Current sources and future aims are stated separately; the composition of sources and the number and type of commissioned studies are published in aggregate in the annual register.
Research areas
The institute's work draws on the most current findings of the social sciences, the cognitive sciences and neuroscience; shared perception is addressed through the conceptual and measurement traditions of these disciplines.
Quantitative sciences and neuroscience
The distance between perception and evidence, the cognitive foundations of perception, and risk perception are measured with the methodological stock of statistics, survey methodology, behavioural economics, cognitive neuroscience, psycholinguistics and social epidemiology. The public's estimates are set beside official records; the share of attention, memory and question wording in judgement, and beliefs about the prevalence of disease and danger, are tested with the same instrument.
Social sciences
Institutional trust, the information environment, and groups and belonging are approached through current findings in political psychology, sociology, social anthropology, communication research and demography. Trust in institutions, the effect of news and platforms on judgement, and a society's beliefs about its own composition are followed within one measurement framework.