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ESOMAR Congress 2026 brought more than 1,000 insights professionals to Valencia from 1 to 4 September. Four days of keynotes, case studies and panel debates at Palacio de Congresos, circling the question that shapes every research organisation: how do we turn data into decisions faster, without giving up quality or trust?
This page covers what the programme focused on and where to find us next.
What the 2026 programme focused on
Four themes ran through most of the sessions:
- AI and automation, past the demo stage. The conversation has moved on from whether AI belongs in research to which parts of the process it can be trusted with. Coding open-ended responses, summarising, drafting questionnaires: useful and increasingly normal. The harder questions were about disclosure, and about what happens to client data when a model touches it.
- Panel quality under pressure. Bots, satisficers and falling response rates came up in nearly every session about data collection. The agreement in the room: quality is something you build into recruitment and profiling, not something you filter out afterwards.
- From projects to always-on. Insight communities and continuous feedback keep gaining ground on project-based fieldwork, driven less by cost than by pace. Teams want an audience they can ask something on a Tuesday.
- Privacy as a design question. With GDPR settled and newer regulation arriving, the European perspective was practical rather than defensive: where data is processed, who the subprocessors are, and what you can show a client without a three-week security review.
Where this fits for research teams
Crowdtech is a European insights platform built by researchers, for researchers. Surveys, research panels and insight communities in one environment, hosted in Amsterdam and certified to ISO 27001 and ISO 27701.
The themes above are the ones we built for: continuous research alongside project work, panel quality that starts at recruitment, and data that stays in Europe without a special arrangement.
If the congress left you with a question about any of that, we are happy to talk it through outside the conference rush. Get in touch or see how Crowdtech works.
ESOMAR Congress 2027
ESOMAR has not yet announced the dates or location for the 2027 edition. We expect to be there. If you would like us to let you know when the details are out, leave your address and we will send one email when ESOMAR publishes them.
Frequently asked questions
When was ESOMAR Congress 2026?
ESOMAR Congress 2026 took place from 1 to 4 September 2026.
Where was ESOMAR Congress 2026 held?
At the Palacio de Congresos in Valencia, Spain.
Who attends ESOMAR Congress?
Insights professionals, research directors, CX leaders, agency heads and technology providers from across the world. Attendance typically exceeds 1,000 participants.
When is ESOMAR Congress 2027?
ESOMAR has not yet published the dates or location for the 2027 congress.
