From 1999 to 2003, contracts for the completion of the survey were led and supervised by the GEM coordination unit at London Business School. In 2004 this role was transferred to the National Teams but supervision and quality control still resides with the GEM Data Team. The current process includes multiple steps and checks:

• The GEM Data Team drafts the full requirements for the survey, its sample, and all data collections requirements. These are published each year in the form of a Request for Proposal (RFP) that is provided to each National Team.

• The National Teams have two choices at this point - to either conduct the survey themselves, or else to have a private firm (usually referred to as their vendor) conduct the survey on their behalf for a set fee. The key document which teams therefore require to finalize the agreement is the Request for Proposal (RFP) and APS package. Information on data collection and the vendors for each country is included as an annex in each year's Global Report.

• Each National Team (often in cooperation with their chosen survey vendor) submits their survey proposal to the GEM Data Team, outlining full details of each aspect of the survey and data collection that they intent to implement.

• The GEM Data Team reviews each national proposal, requests any additional information if required, and assures that it meets the strict GEM requirements. Only when the GEM Data Team is satisfied that the proposal meets all survey, sample, and data collection requirements is the National Team given approval to begin the survey. If the National Team is new or if there have been any major changes from past years (such as the selection of a new survey vendor) the GEM Data Team will require that they conduct a pilot of the survey. From 2014-2016, the APS proposal review process was contracted out to InnovAccer, a data consultancy firm.

• National Teams are required to conduct a pilot survey will begin the survey administration and collect a limited number of responses. This pilot data set will then be sent to the GEM Data Team for a data quality analysis. The data will be examined for any potential errors in coding, excess missing values, skip pattern, sample selection, etc. Once the pilot has been approved, the National Team can then continue full data collection.

• National Teams complete all data collection and initial data preparation, to ensure that all data is properly coded and entered into the GEM-supplied data templates.

• All submitted data sets are examined by the GEM Data Team for data quality, including out of range values, patterns of missing data, skip logic errors, higher than usual incomplete or refusal rates, representativeness of the sampled population, and several tests for the correct calculation of the weights.  The data is also harmonized, where all data from all countries is combined into a single file, using common variable coding schemes.

• The data files, along with any questions from the GEM Data Team, are sent back to the National Teams for their review. Each Team is required to review the processed data, and to respond to all inquiries from the Data Team.

• After all data has been reviewed by the National Team, and all data quality checks are complete, a final data set is produced.  It is this data set that is used to produce each year’s Global Report.