Discuss and Debate Sessions at #RSA20 Annual Conference

Session organiser: Dominika Rogalińska (Director Statistics Poland) and Dominik Rozkrut (President Statistics Poland)

Currently, more than ever before, official statistics has to live up to the growing expectations of data users. They require constantly updated information which describes phenomena in the most accurate and precise manner. Identifying and employing new data sources, as well as new methods and techniques of data analysis are inherent to this process. Statistics Poland has already undertaken to stand up to these challenges. We use satellite imagery in our production process. Implementation of the system to identify and monitor agricultural crops is one of the examples of our activities in this field. Satellite monitoring of crops can be used for an ongoing assessment of the condition of agricultural and horticultural crops, especially in the emergencies and natural disasters (fire, drought, floods, hailstorms, frost, etc.).

This Special Session is dedicated to the discussion about the chances and opportunities deriving from the use of remote sensing as a data source for public statistics.

There are a number of question related to this broad issue, that should be addressed. What data do we need? What advantages will remote sensing have for the national statistical institution and data recipients? Which phenomena can be measured by processing data from satellites?

We acknowledge the need to publish more data on spatial development and the state of the environment, such as the number of buildings and the number of inhabitants  in the areas threatened by natural phenomena, e.g. fire, drought, floods, as well as the changes in the use of land, anthropopressure – changes in the area of impervious surfaces.

We currently use satellite data most widely in agricultural statistics. However, the methods may have numerous applications, for instance, in the identification of the quality of greenery in cities and suburbs. We are constantly looking for new solutions to study new phenomena. Our goal is also to increase the efficiency of official statistics. We are working on replacing traditional data collection methods. Solar energy monitoring is an example of such endeavours. It is quite obvious that surveying solar panel owners would be highly inefficient, both organizational-, cost-, and timewise. Hence, satellite imagery comes in here as an effective alternative. It certainly requires advanced processing techniques, based on AI. At the moment, we are at the stage of methodological work, but our ultimate goal is to implement these solutions in statistical production.

Through interdisciplinary dialogue we would like to share our experiences and think of how we can jointly make better use of data and improve ways of presenting it.

Discussion will be introduced and facilitated by:

Robert Lukesch, CLLD expert and evaluator
Urszula Budzich-Tabor, LDnet President and CLLD expert

Speakers include:

Elena Pisani, University of Padova, Italy
Stefan Kah, European Policies Research Centre (EPRC), United Kingdom

Following two “special sessions” at RSA conferences aiming to strengthen the links between research and practice in local development (in June 2018 in Lugano and June 2019 in Santiago de Compostela), LDnet is proposing a new challenge to the research community: a special session on evaluating territorial instruments, in particular Community-Led Local Development (CLLD).

As the current period of EU cohesion policy is coming to an end, evaluating what has been achieved and demonstrating impacts becomes a priority, especially since CLLD and other territorial instruments are expected to continue to play an important role in the EU cohesion policy 2021-2027. For example, assessing the achievements of over 3000 local CLLD strategies implemented across the EU in 2014-2020 requires close cooperation between policy makers, local development practitioners and researchers.

The discussion at the special session will start with a few examples of on-going and past evaluation exercises and studies looking at the results and impacts of territorial instruments. The potential of these instruments contributing to the new European Commission’s priorities (e.g. the European Green Deal, the new push for European democracy…) will be discussed, and proposals for joint activities between practitioners and researchers will be explored.

Following the experience of 2019, this session will be linked with the special session 42, focusing on CLLD and proposed by Loris Servillo.