Newsletter 2020-10
Dear colleagues,
COVID-19 continues to dominate the landscape – social, economic, and statistical - and ENBES has not escaped, but we are not passive spectators. First, we will outline the impact of the pandemic on us – then we will spotlight our response.
Impacts
The short term impact is that our 1½ day workshop on network analysis, planned for this Autumn in The Hague, and pre-announced in our February newsletter, has had to be canceled. We will continue to monitor activity and interest in this area of research, and revive the idea of a workshop if momentum builds up.
The medium-term impact is we are beginning to reconsider the date, venue, and format for EESW21 – our biennial workshop – announced in our June newsletter as being in the Hague from 14-17 September 2021. The likelihood is that we will maintain the year, but perhaps not the date, and the conference will have to be online - which means no travel costs, potentially wider participation, and a chance to experiment with online media. The cost would be a lack of a social programme, informal networking/cooperation, and challenges around discussions and delegates dropping in and out (both visually and attendance-wise). We think maintaining the year is paramount, so we can address the statistical challenges caused by the pandemic, and continue our biennial series of workshops. We would like to hear your views on this workshop - please email us at info@enbes.org.
Response
Our immediate response was launched with our last newsletter when we collated and promulgated topical papers in our ENBES repository including the challenges with measuring economic changes during a recession, and difficulties with measuring inflation in sectors where expenditure has collapsed due to the lockdown. To contribute a paper, opinion piece, or comment email repository@enbes.org.
As an additional response, ENBES has also written its own paper - ably authored by Paul Smith and Boris Lorenc – on the robustness of methods for producing establishment statistics during economic downturns. We circulated this for comment in the summer, and have now received official backing for this paper – it has been added to the website of the Statistical Journal of the IAOS for on-line discussion, see here.
We hope you continue to be well, both in lockdown and in freedom.
ENBES Steering Committee