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Expert Group in Energy R&D Statistics
Energy R&D has increasingly been viewed as a policy tool to address energy and related environmental challenges. Over time, it is important to reevaluate the categories in light of technical changes, while at the same time maintaining (as far as possible) coherent time series. In this context, the European Commission (EC) set up an expert group on energy R&D statistics. The group, which included representatives from the IEA, EUROSTAT and 10 EU Member or Associated Countries held four meetings in 2003 and 2004 resulting in a number of concrete recommendations on how to improve the data production chain and how to make energy R&D statistics more responsive to users’ needs. The final report Energy R&D Statistics in the European Research Area is available here.
The group identified two areas in which action was needed: updating the existing nomenclature to make it more responsive to users' needs, and improving such dimensions of data quality as reliability, comparability and transparency.
In order to contribute to these aims, the group made the following
recommendations:
1) Extending IEA nomenclature and definitions
of categories
2) Better guidance for country submissions to the IEA (guidelines
forthcoming)
3) Better understanding of the national data compilation process
on energy R&D statistics
4) Segregating budget and expenditure data in the IEA statistics
5) Deepening co-operation between IEA and OECD/Eurostat counterparts
(ongoing)
6) Providing an internet-based central repository for relevant
documents and data
7) Including EC expenditures in the IEA statistics (still outstanding
as of December 2006)