The WVS measures, monitors and analyzes: support for democracy, tolerance of foreigners and ethnic minorities, support for gender equality, the role of religion and changing levels of religiosity, the impact of globalization, attitudes toward the environment, work, family, politics, national identity, culture, diversity, insecurity, and subjective well-being.

Romano Prodi, former Prime Minister of Italy and the tenth President of the European Commission, said about WVS work: The growing globalization of the world makes it increasingly important to understand ... diversity.

People with varying beliefs and values can live together and work together productively, but for this to happen it is crucial to understand and appreciate their distinctive worldviews.

[1]The WVS has over the years demonstrated that people's beliefs play a key role in economic development, the emergence and flourishing of democratic institutions, the rise of gender equality, and the extent to which societies have effective government.

[2] Self-expression values give high priority to environmental protection, growing tolerance of foreigners, gays and lesbians and gender equality, and rising demands for participation in decision-making in economic and political life.

In a liberal post-industrial economy, an increasing share of the population has grown up taking survival and freedom of thought for granted, resulting in that self-expression is highly valued.

Although a majority of the world's population still believes that men make better political leaders than women, this view is fading in advanced industrialized societies, and also among young people in less prosperous countries.

[4] World Values Survey data is used by the United Nation Development Programme in order to calculate the gender social norms index.

The index has four components, measuring gender attitudes in politics, education and economy as well as social norms related to domestic violence.

Negative phenomena, like the distrust in the state of law; the shadow economy; the distance from altruistic values; a growing fatigue of democracy; and the lack of entrepreneurial spirit are all correlated with the loss of religiosity.

The EVS was conducted under the aegis of Jan Kerkhofs and Ruud de Moor and continues to be based in the Netherlands at the Tilburg University.

The 1981 study was largely limited to developed societies, but interest in this project spread so widely that surveys were carried out in more than twenty countries, located on all six inhabited continents.

Ronald Inglehart of the University of Michigan played a leading role in extending these surveys to be carried out in countries around the world.

[24] Due to the European origin of the project, the early waves of the WVS were eurocentric in emphasis, with little representation in Africa and South-East Asia.

To expand, the WVS adopted a decentralised structure, in which social scientists from countries throughout the world participated in the design, execution and analysis of the data, and in publication of findings.

For each wave, suggestions for questions are solicited by social scientists from all over the world and a final master questionnaire is developed in English.

In the first stages, a random selection of sampling points is made based on the given society statistical regions, districts, census units, election sections, electoral roll or polling place and central population registers.

These persons are then interviewed during a limited time frame decided by the executive committee of the World Values Survey using the uniformly structured questionnaires.

Each country has a Principal Investigator (social scientists working in academic institutions) who is responsible for conducting the survey in accordance with the fixed rules and procedures.

It is responsible for the recruitment of new members, the organization of meetings and workshops, data processing and distribution, capacity building and the promotion of publications and dissemination of results.

The World Values Survey data has been used in a large number of scholarly publications and the findings have been reported in media such as BBC News,[32][33][34] Bloomberg Businessweek,[35] China Daily,[36] Chinadialogue.net,[37] CNN,[38][39][40] Der Spiegel,[41][42][43] Der Standard,[44] Rzeczpospolita,[45] Gazeta Wyborcza,[46][47] Le Monde,[48] Neue Zürcher Zeitung,[49][50] Newsweek,[51] Süddeutsche Zeitung,[52][53] Time,[54][55][56] The Economist,[57] The Guardian,[58] The New Yorker,[59] The New York Times,[60][61] The Sydney Morning Herald,[62] The Washington Post,[63] and the World Development Report.

WVR publishes research papers of high scientific standards based on evidence from World Values Surveys data.

Papers in WVR follow good academic practice and abide to ethical norms in line with the mission of the World Values Survey Association.

Publication of submitted papers is pending on an internal review by the executive committee of the World Values Survey Association.