Ess history

Following graduation in 1964, Roger visited the UK. Fear of being arrested on his return to South Africa for his early political involvement meant the move was soon made permanent.

In 1969, Roger created Social and Community Planning Research (SCPR) - now known as NatCen Social Research - with Gerald Hoinville, and would go on to lead the organisation for over 30 years.

Whilst at SCPR, Roger established the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey in 1983 and was heavily involved in its annual report for 19 years.

The company was incorporated in California in 1984.

Max’s association with the European Science Foundation (ESF) dates back to 1987.

In 1989, Kaase became co-director – alongside Kenneth Newton (University of Essex) – of the ESF Beliefs in Government (BiG) project.

In 1992, the company realized net revenues of $23.7 million and net income of $4.8 million.

In 1993, the German Research Council (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft - DFG) appointed Max as its academic member of the ESF Standing Committee for the Social Sciences (SCSS).

The company purchased 16 acres of land in Fremont, California, upon which to build its new corporate facilities and ended the year with revenue reported at $105.7 million, a 216 percent jump over 1994 revenues, and net income of $29.9 million.

In March 1995, the company was served with a patent infringement claim by Yamaha Corporation, in which the latter claimed the company's ESFM products infringed upon patents held by Yamaha.

ESS began 1996 as a leader in providing audio solutions to the PC marketplace, with 35 percent of the market share.

In April 1997, the company's board of directors authorized the repurchase of up to two million shares of the company's stock and two additional buildings were constructed at the Fremont site to house additional engineering capacity.

Beginning in 2000 with just 17 partner districts and 150 substitute employees, the ESS program quickly became the premier solution for school districts and substitutes nationwide.

In 2001, the European Social Survey was established at the National Centre for Social Research (now NatCen Social Research) in London.

Since 2003, the ESS Headquarters are hosted by City, University of London (UK).

Max would become chair of the ESS Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). His work on the ESS earned him an honorary doctorate from City, University of London in 2004.

In 2005, the ESS was the winner of the Descartes Prize for Research and Science Communication.

In 2008, Sir Roger became Deputy Chair of the board of the UK Statistics Authority.

Established in 2011, ESS Inc. enables project developers, independent power producers, utilities and other large energy users to deploy reliable, sustainable long-duration energy storage solutions.

The 2021 DOE Office of Electricity Energy Storage Program Annual Peer Review assembled researchers from across the DOE landscape to summarize the state of the art in energy storage research, development, and application.