Throughout 2013, UNECE's statistical division coordinated activities designed to explore the current situation in statistical organizations with respect to Big Data:
- identifying the main categories of challenges and opportunities presented by the emergence of Big Data for the official statistics community
- developing a general classification of Big Data sources and uses with respect to the production of official statistics
- determining current and planned uses of Big Data for official statistics and collating them in an inventory
- identifying relevant research, experiments, projects and papers: both in the inventory and in a list of related resources
- developing a proposal for a project under the auspices of the HLG (High-Level Group for the Modernisation of Statistical Production and Services) which could help to address some of the challenges and answer some of the questions identified
- refining and adding detail to certain aspects of this proposal (the 'sandbox' work package)
- and finally presenting it to the HLG-MOS for approval in November 2013.