Finn Raben, ESOMAR Director General and Niels Schillewaert, ESOMAR President
We were saddened to hear today that Canada’s Marketing Research and Intelligence Association will be ceasing operations with effect from the 31st August.
Founded through the merger of the Canadian Association of Market Research Organizations (CAMRO), the Canadian Survey Research Council (CSRC) and the Professional Marketing Research Society (PMRS), the MRIA has been the unified voice of the research industry in Canada for the past 14 years and has been a key player in ensuring that the industry is represented to legislators in Canada, as well as protecting the public through their Code of Conduct and Professional Standards team, thus maintaining a key role in professional certification and maintaining the highest quality standards in Canada.
They will be sorely missed and will most certainly leave a gap in the local community. We would like to thank the MRIA members and staff, both past and present, for their tireless and innovative work supporting market research and insight.
The hole that the MRIA leaves in the industry comes at a time when ethical and transparent data collection has never been more important, while national associations are vital in supporting a thriving market research industry. We would like to echo today’s call from Don Mills, President of CRA Research Associates, Barry Watson, President of Environics Research and Jean-Marc Leger, President of Leger 360, that “a new organisation must be created that will act as the standard-bearer for quality research, industry standards and certification process”. In light of this, we are glad to see that there are already efforts put in place for the formation of a new organisation focused on certification, standards and government relations by a group of thought leaders and professionals with the needed expertise and resources, as well as proven dedication to quality research. ESOMAR would like to offer our explicit support and assistance to the Canadian insight and market research industry in these efforts.
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