CITIC researcher Ricardo Cao participated in the Session on Statistical Innovation in the European Statistical System, held in Madrid on Monday 23 October. This is the first of two events organized by the National Statistics Institute (INE) to coincide with the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The session was inaugurated by Elena Manzanera, the president of INE.

Ricardo Cao participated in the round table, together with Marleen Verbruggen, Director of Economics, Business Statistics and National Accounts of the Central Statistical Office of the Netherlands, and Dominika Nowak, Head of Unit of Analysis and Experimental Research of Statistics Poland. David Salgado, Director of Methodology and Sample Design at INE, and Miguel Ángel Martínez, Director of Training, Analysis and Innovation in Statistical Production at INE, also participated in the round table. In addition, Ricardo Cao gave one of the lectures in which he explained the innovation agreements in statistics from the point of view of the Spanish experience.

The CITIC researcher discussed the experience of the Data Science and Engineering for the Improvement of the Official Statistical Function (CIDMEFEO) project, funded with 650,000 euros by the National Statistics Institute (INE), which aims at scientific research, development and technological innovation to improve the official statistical function.

The project led by Ricardo Cao was one of the four awarded in Spain by the INE, which will develop until 2026 seven lines of research of the 13 included in the call. The team is made up of 26 CITIC researchers from areas such as statistics, artificial intelligence and databases. The team was joined by a researcher from the Instituto Galego de Estatística, another from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and a researcher from the Universitè de Genéve.

In the session held on the 23rd, Marleen Verbruggen presented the Innovation Agenda of the European Statistical System (ESS), while Dominika Nowak explained the projects of the Web Intelligence Network, whose objective is to help the National Statistical Institutes to make progress in the production of national statistics, taking advantage of the potential of new technologies and databases to generate statistics in an efficient, accurate and cost-effective manner.

The second event organized by the INE, in collaboration with the Institute of Economics, Geography and Demography of the CSIC (IEGD-CSIC) is the European Data Users Conference, which will hold its fourth edition on October 30 and 31. The conference will analyze the situation of social and demographic statistics in the European Union.