Michael Adams graduated from university during a recession. With job offers for new graduates scarce, he and two co-founders, David McFadden and John McNaughton, launched a company grounded in their academic interest in studying social issues. A subsequent partnership between Michael Adams and Derek Ruston helped Environics build its strength as a business. This balance – between curious exploration and commercial success – remains central to Environics’ culture.
Environics Research celebrates 50 years of research insights and innovation.
Our co-founder Michael Adams was honoured in 2017 with an appointment to the Order of Canada for his leadership in public opinion research, and for his insights into Canadian values and identity.
Fire and Ice: The United States, Canada and the Myth of Converging Values won the 2003/2004 Donner Prize for Best Public Policy Book by a Canadian, praised as “an outstanding book that addresses a critical issue underlying many current policy arguments.” It was also selected by the Literary Review of Canada as one of the hundred most important books ever published in Canada.
To facilitate research work with the federal government and other public affairs clients in the National Capital Region, in 2003 we launched the Ottawa office of Environics Research. Our Ottawa team continues to deliver evidence-driven insights to government, NGOs, and the private sector on a wide range of issues.
With new modes of data collection and analysis reshaping the research landscape in Canada, Environics Research invested in the creation of Environics Analytics, complementing the latter’s “big analytics” capabilities with a rich trove of social values research. Environics Analytics remains a close collaborator of Environics Research, and has become the leading provider of solutions for evidence-driven decision making to Canadian businesses and institutions.
After years or engaging Research House as a supplier, Environics Research acquired the research service firm, whose capabilities ranged from computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI) to the provision of venues and supports for qualitative research.
The nonprofit Environics Institute for Survey Research was established by Michael Adams to promote relevant and original public opinion and social research on important issues of public policy and social change. Often initiating its own research programs and topic-specific studies, the Institute focuses on issues of public importance that might not otherwise be explored by firms or governments.
With social media becoming an increasingly important landscape for research insights, Environics Research invested in an innovative Montreal-based startup focused on the analysis of public conversations online. Nexalogy Environics became the newest addition to Environics’ versatile network of research enterprises.
The Canadian Research and Insights Council (CRIC) is Canada’s voice of the research, insights and analytics industry both domestically and globally. Extending a long record of collaborating to support high standards for research quality and ethics, Environics is proud to support CRIC’s efforts to protect the public interest in research. CRIC members include research agencies, companies that rely on insights, and other industry partners.
The IRIS Global Network is one of the world’s largest of networks of independently owned research institutes. By joining this collaboration, which involves (37) IRIS offices around the world, Environics Research enhanced our ability to efficiently support clients in major global research initiatives, offering insight into international markets and their consumers, businesses and societies.
