EUSTAGE: Towards a European Statistical Agency
as an Intermediate Data Facility in Europe

Ron Dekker and Wouter de Groot 
Scientific Statistical Agency (WSA)
Social Science Research Council
Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO)


Structure in The Netherlands 

In 1994 the Scientific Statistical Agency
(WSA) was founded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research
(NWO). Its main purpose is to open up important microdata for scientific
research in the social sciences. The Scientific Statistical Agency acts as
an intermediary between producers and providers of data on the one side
and researchers on the other.

WSA is part of the Social Science Research Council and is therefore close
to research trends. In addition researchers are contacted to establish
data relevance. The agency's board takes care of policy and strategic
matters. WSA has a limited staff, because it focusses on its intermediary
role and does not carry out any archiving. The data producer itself can be
the provider. If such is not the case, WSA will call in the Data Archives
of the Netherlands Institute for Scientific Information Services (NIWI) to
take care of archiving and distributing the data.

Opening up data for secondary use means improving availability and
accessibility of microdata. In order to make data available WSA enters
into long-term contracts with data producers settling financial and
privacy matters. The agency may grant subsidies to update documentation or
to make data suitable for secondary use. Occasionally a lump sum is paid
to data providers. In this case a minor part of the data costs are passed
on to the users. For this WSA has developed a tariff system based on the
number of cases and variables.

To ensure privacy protection several measures have been taken. Firstly,
microdata are available for scientific research only. It is not allowed to
use them for administrative or marketing purposes.  Furthermore,
identifying variables of respondents are removed from the data files and
data are delivered to organizations only, and not to individuals. Before
receiving data for the first time organizations are screened. If the
organization is granted permission a contract is drawn up between the data
producer and the research organisation. This contract states, among
others, that data may not be merged with other data and that research
output is registered and checked before publication on identifying tables
or data. Finally, every individual researcher has to sign a secrecy
statement.

Currently the WSA data collection consists of surveys on persons and
households by Statistics Netherlands (CBS), school careers at primary and
secondary schools, labour market developments of graduates, labour supply
and demand panels, the European Values Studies, and the CentERdata
Telepanel. In addition a grant has been awarded to CEREM, the Centre for
Research on Economic Microdata. This is an on-site facility at CBS where
microdata on firms have been made available to researchers.

Another goal of WSA is to improve the accessibility of microdata.
Secondary users may not be familiar with the ins and outs of the data
which may hamper their use. By presenting an overview of the data
available and lowering the threshold for their actual use WSA tries to
meet researchers' demands. This is done partly through the publication of
the WSA-Catalogue. In this catalogue information is given about the data
WSA has made available, the procedures involved to obtain them, and the
tariffs at which they can be purchased. Two versions exist: one on paper
and one on the Internet.

The accessibility of microdata is also improved by the transfer of
knowledge. Firstly, through data documentation, publishing articles in the
Research Council's Newsletter, and by providing information on the
WSA-website. Secondly, through user meetings and workshops. At user
meetings data producers and users can exchange experiences regarding the
microdata. Sometimes general methodological matters such as weighting or
microsimulation are discussed. The result will be an improvement of the
microdata concerned and valuable information for WSA about clients' wishes
and research trends.

Internationalisation and an interdisciplinary approach to solve complex
research and policy problems are important research trends. As a
consequence there will be an increased demand for data that are made
comparable between nations, over a period of time, and at multiple levels
(micro and macro). Another trend in data collecting is the combined use of
register and survey data. This may complicate dissemination of the data
for secondary use. Furthermore, the Internet offers new opportunities to
present information about the data, but also in getting on-line data
access.

To anticipate these developments the agency uses a thematic rather than a
producer-oriented approach to open up data and construct data clusters
(collections of coherent data). Another development will be the
documentation of Dutch data in English and the collection of international
data. WSA's approach could act as a blueprint for other intermediary data
organizations.


Towards a European structure

As information becomes available easier and in vast quantities the need
for an intermediary organization becomes greater. At the national level
several initiatives have been taken. During the presentation severeal
cases will be presented. To stimulate the use of secondary data in other
countries and to initiate internationally comparative and
interdisciplinary research a European Statistical Agency (Eustage) should
be established.

Eustage could also act as a "data source infrastructure" by bringing
together, documentation and making available existing data sources,
constructing user-friendly uniform European datasets for scientific
analyses and co-ordination of data collection for surveys on a European
scale. The European Statistical Agency can facilitate the supply of
secondary data that are indispensable to economic and social science
research. Eustage can be supported by a limited staff as it will be
connected to ICT-network facilities to the research institutes and the
statistical bureaus of the European countries.