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Knowledge4Policy
Knowledge for policy
Supporting policy with scientific evidence

We mobilise people and resources to create, curate, make sense of and use knowledge to inform policymaking across Europe.

ESSnetBigData: European Statistical System Big Data

Brief me

ESSnet Big Data is a project within the European statistical system (ESS) jointly undertaken by 22 partners. Its objective is the integration of big data in the regular production of official statistics, through pilots exploring the potential of selected big data sources and building concrete applications.

The consortium of statistical offices is currently conducting pilot projects focussing on different data sources, such as websites, Automatic Vessel Identification data, smart meter data and mobile communication data. Especially mobile phone data will be analysed for providing information on population and population movements. Currently, the project is in a first phase of establishing relationships with mobile network operators for partnerships and data access. First analysis is already ongoing in selected countries. Additional effort will be put on identifying and elaborating applications for early indicators and merging different data sources for producing statistical information in some domains including population.

Workpackage 7 (WP7) of ESSnet Big Data aims to investigate how a combination of big data sources, administrative data and statistical survey data may enrich output in the statistical domains of population, tourism and border crossings, and agriculture.

Latest knowledge from this Project