L&E Research Passes First ISO 20252:2019 Surveillance Audit With Zero Findings

RALEIGH, N.C. — June 17, 2026 — L&E Research, a trusted partner connecting companies with people to make meaningful conversations happen, today announced it has completed its first ISO 20252:2019 surveillance audit with zero nonconformities and zero areas of note. The audit was conducted by CIRQ, the Certification Institute for Research Quality, an accredited certification body and a subsidiary of the Insights Association. The result confirms the company’s continued certification to the international quality standard for market, opinion, and social research.

ISO 20252 governs the full arc of a research project, from design and sampling through data collection, processing, analysis, and reporting. A surveillance audit is the independent check conducted between full recertification cycles, and it tests whether a certified organization maintains the standard during live, day-to-day operations rather than only at the point of initial certification. Audits of this kind commonly return at least minor findings; a result with none is uncommon.

“A certification proves you can meet a standard. A clean surveillance audit, a year later, proves you live by it,” said Brett Watkins, CEO of L&E Research. “This result did not come from a policy binder. It came from people who do the work right when no one is watching. I could not be prouder of our teams.”

The audit reviewed L&E’s operations across multiple research sectors during a period of active client work. Company leadership attributed the outcome to the behaviors that sit beneath the documentation: account managers who clarify client needs before scoping, recruiters who re-screen borderline respondents, project managers who surface small issues early, and data teams who validate results before delivery.

L&E Research also holds ISO/IEC 27001 certification for information security management, placing it among a small group of research providers worldwide certified to both standards.
For research buyers, ISO 20252 certification offers a consistent, independent benchmark for evaluating the rigor of a research provider’s processes. L&E Research maintains the certification across its operations.

Press contact:
Kelli Hammock, Director of Marketing, khammock@leresearch.com

 

About L&E Research

L&E Research is a trusted partner connecting companies with people to make conversations happen. Since 1984, we have helped the world’s leading brands understand their customers through the power of human connection and innovative recruitment and research solutions. We serve a wide range of industries, including healthcare, consumer goods, legal, biotech, and more, delivering trusted insights that help clients make smarter, more meaningful decisions. Learn more at leresearch.com.