Abstract

This presentation looks at the changing role of National Statistics Institutes (NSIs) in modern society. While digitalisation and technological advances have made data widely available, it has also opened the door to widespread misinformation. In this climate, NSI’s need, more than ever, to assert their role as trusted sources of unbiased information by highlighting their regulated, independent and non-profit agenda.
To achieve this, however, NSI’s firstly need to remain relevant. This presentation will discuss the proactive strategies that need to be employed to achieve this. A core component of these strategies is modernisation. NSI’s need to shift their focus to more flexible product development and delivery to ensure that the needs of different users are met. This means producing more innovative and timely outputs that are easily accessible and understood by not only policy makers, but the public. NSI's must also take a more active role in research. As a rich source of diverse data, NSI’s should facilitate the use and re-use of data by researchers to maximise data potential. This will reinforce the important role of NSI’s in evidence-based policymaking and academia. NSI’s should also move away from the traditional survey-based approaches for collecting and processing data to modern methods using smart data sources and modernised techniques and tools, incorporating the use of Artificial Intelligence.
To achieve all this, a significant conceptual shift is required: moving away from the NSI acting as the sole producer of official statistics, to embracing the notion of a National Statistical System involving different actors. This means a shift from siloed data production to active coordination. NSI’s are uniquely positioned to assume this system-wide data stewardship role through a wealth of knowledge and experience in data governance and quality assurance in statistical production. Ultimately, this modern approach to statistical production should foster innovation in the use and re-use of statistics and encourage active collaboration with stakeholders to harness novel data sources. By doing all this, NSI’s will be acknowledging and championing the integral role of Other National Authorities (ONAs), researchers, data providers and even data users in the co-creation of statistical products.