The International Statistical Institute (ISI) and the International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS) have sent a letter to the Prime Minister of Fiji calling on him to act urgently to provide vindication of its actions to rebuild trust in Fiji statistics.
The heads of the American Statistical Association (ASA), International Statistical Institute (ISI) and Royal Statistical Society (RSS) issue a letter to the Prime Minister of Greece regarding the continued prosecution of Dr. Georgiou.
International Association for Survey Statisticians (IASS) is organizing a webinar entitled "Building a Sample Frame of SMEs Using Patent, Search Engine, and Website Data" on Thursday, 2 September 2021 at 1 pm - 2:30 pm (CET).
Webinar Abstract
This research outlines the process of building a sample frame of US SMEs. The method starts with a list of patenting organizations and defines the boundaries of the population and subsequent frame using free to low-cost data sources, including search engines and websites. Generating high-quality data is of key importance throughout the process of building the frame and subsequent data collection; at the same time, there is too much data to curate by hand. Consequently, we turn to machine learning and other computational methods to apply a number of data matching, filtering, and cleaning routines. The results show that it is possible to generate a sample frame of innovative SMEs with reasonable accuracy for use in subsequent research: Our method provides data for 79% of the frame. We discuss implications for future work for researchers and NSIs alike and contend that the challenges associated with big data collections require not only new skillsets but also a new mode of collaboration.
Biography of Speakers
Sanjay K. Arora is an innovation policy and management researcher who uses emerging big data sources to measure small firm R&D and entrepreneurial activity. He is also an ML Engineering Business Leader at EY, the global audit and consulting firm. Sanjay currently resides in Washington, DC.
Sarah Kelley, MIDS, is a Senior Data Scientist at Child Trends where her work focuses on the intersection of social science and data science, especially using natural language processing and machine learning to answer social science questions.
Registration
The IASS webinar is open to all. Please register for the webinar here. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar. There will be time for questions. The webinar will be recorded and made available on the International Statistical Institute (ISI) website.
Calling all Young Official Statisticians
Win a trip to an international statistical conference
The International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS) is pleased to announce the launch of the 2022 IAOS Young Statisticians Prize. This international prize encourages young statisticians to take an active interest in official statistics and is awarded for the best paper in the field of official statistics written by a young statistician.
In addition to the monetary prizes, the first-place winner(s) receive travel funds to present their paper at an international conference. Details of the conference will be decided in conjunction with the winner and may include the 2022 IAOS Conference being held in Krakow, Poland in April 2022.
Submissions should address and propose solutions to pressing methodological or strategic issues in the area of official statistics at the regional, national or international level, be no more than 4,000 words, be submitted in English and should not have been previously presented in a public forum or published. A maximum of three co-authors is allowed for each submission and an author can participate in only one submission.
An international panel will judge submissions based on the following criteria:
The 2020 prize winner, Ms. Kenza Sallier, shared her tips on preparing a winning submission in this presentation (LINK). Her presentation is recommended viewing.
Papers must be submitted before 11:59pm (UTC) on 11 February 2022.
For more details about the 2022 IAOS Young Statisticians Prize and requirements for submissions, please see HERE.
August 2021
The International Statistical Institute and the International Association for Official Statistics continue to be very concerned at the legal action being taken against the former head of the Greek Statistics Office (ELSTAT).
We understand that the decision of the Greek civil court against him for alleged slander is due to be reviewed by the Greek Supreme Court in the near future.
The ISI and IAOS have followed Mr Georgiou’s various cases with growing concern, as this has now stretched over ten years.
The slander charges specifically relate to a public statement Georgiou made in his official role as President of ELSTAT while fulfilling his responsibility to defend the official deficit and debt statistics for Greece produced under his leadership. These statistics have been fully validated by Eurostat — the statistical office of the EU. The UN’s Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics and the European Statistics Code of Practice give statistical offices the right to comment publicly on criticisms and misuse of statistics.
Paragraph 20 of the Preamble to EU Regulation 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council, the Statistical Law of the EU, states that the national statistical authorities of the EU should enjoy professional independence and ensure impartiality and high quality in the production of European statistics in accordance with the principles in the European Statistics Code of Practice (endorsed by the Commission in its Recommendation of 25 May 2005 on the independence, integrity and accountability of the national and Community statistical authorities). We cannot but express our utter surprise and indignation that Georgiou is now called upon by the plaintiff in the slander case, to immediately pay damages and make a public apology for defending the revision of the misreported statistics produced during the plaintiff’s tenure (2006-2010) as director of the national accounts division of the Greek statistics office. And this even as the case is being reviewed by the Greek Supreme Court.
We restate our grave concern that these continued prosecutions have damaged the scientific integrity of highly regarded work addressing Greece’s highly problematic fiscal statistical reporting from the 2000s, which was according to many, including the European Parliament, a major contributing factor to the Greek debt crisis. This is not just a civil case between two private individuals; it is a case fundamental to official statistics production, scientific freedom, scientific responsibility and democratic and human rights. It has implications for the international statistical system, and the rights of government statisticians to defend their statistics in an open and transparent manner as allowed under the UN Principles and the European Code. Undoubtedly the implications are not confined to the statistical sphere, but extend to economic prosperity, democracy and human rights.
We demand an end to the now 10-year persecution of Andreas Georgiou and his full exoneration, in consequence of the UN Fundamental Principles of Statistics and the EU Statistical Law (223/20090), thereby signalling Greece’s commitment to accurate and ethical government statistics.
Stephen Penneck
President
International Statistical Institute
Misha Belkindas
President
International Association for Official Statistics
(Also see our previous Statements and Letters concerning this issue.)
