While economic statistics play an unprecedentedly large part in public debate, and many experts make use of them, the UK did not – until recently - have a dedicated academic centre of expertise. All this changed in November 2016 with the creation of the Economic Statistic Centre of Excellence (ESCoE), an investment by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in response to the findings of the Bean Review.

NIESR is proud to be leading the consortium of prestigious institutions which make up the Centre, namely King’s College London, innovation foundation Nesta, University of Cambridge, Warwick Business School (University of Warwick) and Strathclyde Business School. ESCoE’s focus will be to provide analysis of emerging and future issues in measuring the modern economy. The centre will offer the capacity for fundamental methodological and conceptual work, which will include best ways to address the challenge of measuring new forms of economic activity in a globalised world, meeting the needs for local area statistics and the productivity puzzle. Moreover ESCoE will offer a platform for constructive discussion and dialogue around official statistics, to feed into the development and improvement of ONS economic statistics and data processing methodologies. The Centre will generate mechanisms for greater collaboration between ONS and external experts.

Operating from NIESR’s office in central London, the Centre will be a venue for lecture series and masterclasses, a meeting point for researchers and stakeholders, and a common base for international visitors and secondments to the ESCoE, as well as a common base for ESCoE PhD students and junior researchers. The ambitious core research programme consists of thirteen projects in three broad areas: National Accounts and Beyond GDP, Productivity and the Modern Economy, Regional and Labour Market Statistics. For further details of our research programme see here.

Visit the ESCoE website