This project is part of the research programme "Portuguese Social Attitudes" coordinated by Manuel Villaverde Cabral and Jorge Vala. The European Values Study (EVS) was created in 1978 by the European Foundation for the Study of Values.

The project intends to study patterns of values in European countries, in order to analyse eventual values changes in contemporary societies. Currently, around 30 EU and non-EU countries participate in this research network. The questions addressed are the following:

- Do the Europeans share a homogenous group of values?

- Are values changing in Europe?

- What are the directions of these possible changes?

And to answer these questions different dimensions of values are addressed, namely:

- Religious values;

- Family values;

- Socio-political values;

- Labour and economic values;

- Moral values;

- Environmental values

- Diversity values.

The first study was carried out in 1981. Portugal participated in the second study, conducted in 1990, through the Instituto de Estudos para o Desenvolvimento, under the coordination of Luís de França. The results of this study were published in 1993 in the book Portugal, Valores Europeus, Identidade Cultural. The third study in 1999/2000 was coordinated by Jorge Vala within the Portuguese Social Attitudes research program. The results were reported in a book published by the Imprensa de Ciências Sociais.

In Portugal the EVS has been funded by the following institutions: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Fundação Luso-Americana para o Desenvolvimento, Caixa Geral de Depósitos, Banco Comercial Português and also by the Instituto de Ciências Sociais.

Members of the Portuguese research team are part of international groups of the project. Jorge Vala is a member of the Executive Committee and of the Theory Group and Alice Ramos is part of the Methodological Group

The EVS studies are carried out every ten years to representative samples of the population of the participating countries, composed by those living in the country that are 18 years or older, regardless of their nationality or legal situation.

Data produced within this project is free and can be accessed in the following websites-

http://www.atitudessociais.org/; http://zacat.gesis.org/webview/index.jsp

In Portugal, data from the fourth edition of the study are already collected and where delivered to the Central Archive of the EVS. A first comparable data set is expected to April/May 2009.

Within the previous EVS studies the following publications were produced by the members of the research team:

Vala, J. (1993), «Valores socio-políticos», in L. França (Ed.) Portugal - Valores Europeus, Identidade Cultural, Lisboa, I.E.D.

Vala, J., Cabral, M.V., & Ramos, A. (Eds.) (2003) Valores Sociais: mudanças e contrastes em Portugal e na Europa. Lisboa: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais.

Vala, J., Lima, M. E., & Lopes, D. (2004). «Social values, prejudice and solidarity in the European Union», in Arts, W. and Halman, L. (Eds.), European values at the end of the millennium. (pp. 139-163). Leiden: Brill.

Ver outras publicações em http://www.atitudessociais.org/