BACK TO OUR ROOTS FOR THE SEVENTH TIME
This year marks the seventh time that the GOR has visited its founding
city of Cologne. This year, the Rheinische Fachhochschule is opening
its doors to us as a partner of the GOR again at its Campus Centre in
Cologne-Ehrenfeld.
Rheinische Hochschule Köln (RH) is a private, state-recognized
university of applied sciences located in Cologne, North Rhine-
Westphalia, Germany. It was officially established in 1971 and
continues the tradition of the Rheinische Ingenieurschule für Bauund
Maschinenbauwesen, which was founded in 1958. The institution
offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs in areas such
as engineering, business administration, law, social sciences, and
health. RH is organized under private sponsorship and is subject to
state supervision according to the Higher Education Act of North Rhine-
Westphalia. The university maintains several campuses in Cologne and
has a student population of approximately 5,700.
As in previous years, we have a great conference programme lined
up for you including keynotes, discussions, presentations, awards,
posters, workshops and much more. Again we come with a structure
across thematic categories into sessions. In doing so, we want to break
down the silos and network people even more closely. This is entirely in
line with our claim ‘Connecting People: Innovating Market Research and
Social Data Science’. You can choose between four parallel sessions and
one invited session. In addition, there are three award competitions:
i) the GOR Impact & Innovation Award 2026 for the most impactful
market research case, ii) the GOR Thesis Award 2026 for the best thesis
in online research, iii) the GOR Poster Award 2026 for the best poster
of the conference. The DGOF Best Paper Award 2026 for the best paper
in online research will also be awarded at GOR. In addition, this year’s
GOR will honour the winner of the ‘Best of FAMS Award’, an annual
competition organised by the industry associations ADM, BVM and
DGOF for the best final theses by trainees studying to become market
and social research specialists (FAMS).
Our keynotes this year take different looks at the development of our
profession. On Thursday, 26th February, Dr. Katharina Schüller, Founder
& Owner of STAT-UP Statistical Consulting & Data Science will talk about
“More efficiency, new problems? AI in empirical research” and on
Friday, 27th February, Prof. Dr. Peter Lugtig from Utrecht University, will
welcome us to the age of data integration and discuss ‘But how to do
it?’.
On the pre-conference day, Wednesday, 25th February, four workshops
will take place located at the GESIS Office Cologne. We will conclude
Thursday’s conference with three events. First, at 5:15 p.m., the DGOF
general meeting will take place at the RFH. At 7 p.m., the Early Career
Speed Networking Event will begin at the Blue Shell, where we will kick
off this year’s GOR Party at 8 p.m. in cooperation with the ‘Middance
Crisis’ party series.
We are particularly grateful for the enthusiastic support of and
collaboration with our partners at Rheinische Hochschule Köln: Prof. Dr.
Christian Bosau and his team. We would also like to thank our sponsors
and media partners. And, of course, a big THANKS to you, the conference
participants, presenters, and speakers at this event!
Dr. Otto Hellwig
Simon Kühne
Digital Methods Data Science Survey Research Online Research Applied Research