AMSR Summer Party 2025

The Archive of Market and Social Research held its annual Summer Party on a sunny summer evening on Tuesday 10 June at the pleasant top floor conference room and rooftop terrace of Bush House King’s College London in the Aldwych. Around 80 members of the great and good in Market Research and Insights attended a meeting with drinks, speeches, discussion and canapés. Everyone seemed to have a good time.

Richard Asquith, the new Chief Executive introduced the evening by thanking his predecessor, Adam Phillips, and giving a brief summary of the progress the AMSR has made over the last year. This included a chart demonstrating that news of an audience measurement survey by the BBC reporting on a Tamil sex education programme series had reached the internet, increasing the number of visits to the archive tenfold during December and January.

Professor Patrick Barwise, Emeritus Professor at London Business School and Chair of the AMSR talked about the impressive progress being made encouraging university academics to use the archive in their research.

He was followed by Dr Stella Moss, Lecturer in Modern British History at Royal Holloway, University of London. She introduced the work she has been doing on alcoholic drink consumption using material in the Archive, and by Liz Watts. Liz presented the work that AMSR has been doing with schools. She introduced Alan Kunna from London Brookes College who took the stage with a colleague and three A-level students who had been using the Archive in their schoolwork. They were the stars of the evening.

Rebecca Cole, MRS Chair Designate, gave a short, well-informed speech about the importance of the Archive, the reasons why the Insights sector should support it and the need to donate money to support it.

Finally there was a Q&A session with the audience where Patrick Barwise, and Richard Asquith answered questions from the audience.

The overall impression was that the AMSR has finally established itself as an important element in promoting the importance of the Research and Insights sector and in educating young people and the public in what we do.
Here is a more detailed account of the event.