Using an online panel to understand citizen views on DEFRA’s strategic policy issues

Verian (formerly Kantar Public) has partnered with our client, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), on the Survey on Attitudes to the Environment (SAE) since 2020.

The survey provides important data on public attitudes and behaviours around many of Defra’s policy areas. However, in the context of continually developing and evolving environmental policy it is vital to go beyond the ‘what’ (what individuals report valuing or doing) and use qualitative research to dig deeper into complex and dynamic findings as well as the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of these attitudes, perspectives, values and behaviours as they relate to the environment, nature, climate change and reaching Net Zero.

Approach

Defra commissioned Verian to design a longitudinal qualitative panel to complement and expand on the survey. The panel was commissioned to generate in-depth insights to illuminate the survey’s results and findings as well as understanding of citizen views, ideas, and insights on strategic issues for Defra.

The panel consisted of 31 participants from across England and participants took part in four waves of research. Each wave of research focused on a different topic, chosen according to emerging strategic priorities:

1. The first wave examined ‘reusing’ and ‘refilling’ food and drink containers, exploring perceptions of single-use items together with barriers and enablers to ‘reusing and refilling’ and potential policy options.
2. The second wave worked to build an understanding of what drives consumers on healthy and sustainable food choices, the drivers, and barriers to a healthy and sustainable diet as well as initiatives that may help overcome barriers.
3. Wave 3 explored participants’ perspectives of local environmental factors and the soundscape (the acoustic environment), along with priorities for intervention.
4. Finally Wave 4 built on previous internal Defra research and explored attitudes towards invasive non-native species in the UK.

It was important that the approach we undertook was flexible and responsive to the needs of each wave of research, as well as capable of delivering detailed insights on participants’ views and behaviours. Our approach to each wave of research, whilst bespoke in design, followed a two-stage iterative approach, bridged by a high-level findings and co-design workshop:

1. The first stage comprised of a 5-day online community, designed to include a range of activities (including, but not limited to, open questions, polls, ‘sort and rank’ tasks, sentence completions, image uploads and discussion boards). This was broken up with an ‘interim task’ designed to ground participants’ responses in real, everyday experiences.
2. The second stage comprised of either a 90 minute online focus group or 30 minute one to one interviews with 12 participants, as best suited the needs of the research.

Impact

This study used an engaging and accessible platform for participants to contribute their thoughts, enabling rich outputs and provided invaluable insight for Defra. Lessons learned from the delivery of this research also provided guidance on best practice for running successful qualitative panels in the future, especially maintaining engagement.

The final report Strategic Qualitative Panel - NT0822 is available on the defra.gov.uk website.

For further information about this study you can contact Samantha Outhwaite at Verian Samantha.outhwaite@veriangroup.com or the Strategic Social Research Team ssrt@defra.gov.uk.