Composite Indicators

 

An information server on composite indicators and ranking systems

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Econometrics and Applied Statistics

JRC-IPSC-G09

In brief...

“[…] it is hard to imagine that the debate on the use of composite indicators will ever be settled […] official statisticians may tend to resent composite indicators, whereby a lot of work in data collection and editing is “wasted” or “hidden” behind a single number of dubious significance. On the other hand, the temptation of stakeholders and practitioners to summarise complex and sometime elusive processes (e.g. sustainability, single market policy, etc.) into a single figure to benchmark country performance for policy consumption seems likewise irresistible.

Andrea Saltelli, JRC

 

 

NEW Training course on composite indicators

Constructing Composite Indicators: Theoretical and practical aspects

Ispra, Italy, 13-14 May 2010

 

 

What's New in 2009

 

 

2008 Ibrahim Index of African Governance

The Index of African Governance, developed by the Harvard Kennedy School, aims to measure the quality of political goods provided by 48 African states south of Sahara to their citizens. The Index assesses governance issues according to a five-pillar conceptual structure: (a) Safety and Security, (b) Rule of Law, Transparency, and Corruption, (c) Participation and Human Rights, (d) Sustainable Economic Opportunity, and (e) Human Development. A validation review (PDF, 1.1 MB) conducted independently by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre in 2009 aims to critically assess the methodological approach of the Index.

 

4th Conference of the International Rankings Expert Group

Astana, Kazakhstan, 14-16 June 2009

The three main topical lines of the Astana conference were:

  • international/regional rankings;

  • national rankings;

  • approaches and measurements for developing comparable transnational data while respecting the limitations of a “culture of numbers” in assessing quality of research or other activities carried out by higher education institutions.

Presentation of the JRC work on "Rickety Numbers - Volatility of international rankings of higher education and implications for policy making" by Andrea Saltelli. Full report here

 

OPHI Workshop on Robustness Methods for Multidimensional Welfare Analysis

5-6 May 2009, Oxford

The goal of this OPHI workshop is to identify and discuss specific areas for research aimed at developing stronger methodologies of robustness for multidimensional well-being analysis. Special emphasis is given to stochastic dominance techniques. The sessions will survey how various methods have been applied in the literature, and identify strengths and weaknesses of the techniques and discuss potential further developments. See presentation given by Andrea Saltelli.

 

 

 

Events 2009
Composite indicators development and assessment
Bilbao, Spain, 31 March - 2 April

OPHI Workshop on Robustness Methods for Multidimensional Welfare Analysis

Oxford, 5-6 May 2009

Workshop: Can creativity be measured?

Brussels, 28-29 May 2009

XLVI International Conference of the Italian Society on Economics, Demography and Statistics (SIEDS)
Florence, Italy, 28-30 May

4th Conference of the International Rankings Expert Group

Astana, Kazakhstan, 14-16 June 2009

European Survey Research Association Conference (ESRA 2009)

Warsaw, Poland, 29 June-3 July 3 2009

Innovative Approaches to Turn Statistics into Knowledge

Washington D.C., United States, 15-16 July 2009                               

US Census Bureau, OECD, World Bank Seminar

IX ISQOLS Conference on Quality of Life Studies

Florence, Italy, 19-23 July 2009

7th International Conference of Numerical Analysis and Applied Mathematics (ICNAAM 2009)

Crete, Greece, 18-22 September 2009

Constructing Composite Indicators: Theoretical and practical aspects

Luxembourg, 22-23 September 2009                                                                                 

Eurostat/JRC Seminar

First International Conference on Advances in System Simulation

Porto, Portugal, 20-25 September 2009

European Conference on Educational Research

Vienna, Austria, 25-30 September 2009

Third OECD World Forum on “Statistics, Knowledge and Policy”. Charting Progress, Building Visions, Improving Life

Busan, KOREA, 27-30 October 2009

3rd International Conference on World-Class Universities (WCU-3)

Shanghai, China, 2-4 November 2009

 

 

 

Past news

Higher Education Rankings: Robustness Issues and Critical Assessment

How much confidence can we have in Higher Education Rankings? NEW

The Academic Ranking of World Universities (by Shanghai's Jiao Tong University) and the TIMES Higher Education Supplement (THES) ranking have become, probably beyond the intention of their developers, a reference for scholars and policy makers in the field of higher education. The question addressed in this JRC report is whether the Shanghai ranking serves the purposes it is used for, and whether its immediate European alternative, the British THES, can do better.

More on the story:

Higher education rankings: are they statistically reliable? (24/11/08, JRC press release)

Vers un classement européen des universitése (14/11/08, LeMonde)

More European angst and action (30/11/08, Global Higher Education)

CRELL: critiquing global university rankings and their methodologies (29/01/09, Global Higher Education)

EUROPE: Are higher education rankings reliable? (30/11/08, University World News)

 

 

HANDBOOK ON CONSTRUCTING COMPOSITE INDICATORS:  

METHODOLOGY AND USER GUIDE NEW
This Handbook aims to provide a guide to the construction and use of composite indicators, for policy-makers, academics, the media and other interested parties. While there are several types of composite indicators, this Handbook is concerned with those which compare and rank country performance in areas such as industrial competitiveness, sustainable development, globalization and innovation. The Handbook aims to contribute to a better understanding of the complexity of composite indicators and to an improvement in the techniques currently used to build them. In particular, it contains a set of technical guidelines that can help constructors of composite indicators to improve the quality of their outputs. It has been prepared jointly by the OECD (the Statistics Directorate and the Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry) and the Applied Statistics and Econometrics Unit of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission in Ispra, Italy.

 

 

 

OECD World Forum Proceedings, June 27-30, 2007, Istanbul-Turkey

Measuring and fostering the progress of societies

 

 

 

 

 

 

2008 Composite Learning Index: Measuring Canada's progress in Lifelong Learning

The 2008 Composite Learning Index (CLI) is developed for more than 4,700 communities in Canada to measure progress in lifelong learning. The CLI is based on seventeen indicators that reflect the many ways Canadians learn, whether in school, in the home, at work or within the community. The first index of its kind in the world, the CLI is a valuable measurement tool that recognizes how learning throughout a person’s life is critical to their success, the success of the community and the success of the country as a whole. The CLI has been assessed as “internally sound and robust” in a validation review (PDF, 1.1 MB) conducted by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre in 2007.

 

 

 

Talk given by Andrea Saltelli , "Ecoinformatics International Technical meeting" at US EPA, Research Triangle Park, USA, 8-11/04/2008

 

 

 

 

 

2008 Environmental Performance Index

The 2008 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) was developed for 149 countries and is based on twenty-five indicators in 6 policy categories: Environmental Health, Air Pollution, Water, Biodiversity and Habitat, Productive Natural Resources, Climate Change. The 2008 EPI aims to bring a data-driven, fact-based and empirical approach to environmental protection and global sustainability. The Unit of Econometrics and Applied Statistics at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission has provided input to the 2008 EPI issued today at the World Economic Forum in Davos by Yale and Columbia Universities. The JRC has examined the robustness of the results to the methodological assumptions, and thereby shed light on those countries for which the results are highly sensitive to the methodological assumptions of the Index.

 

 

Comparative Analysis of Alcohol Control Policies in 30 Countries

The World Health Organization places a high priority on controlling alcohol-related problems through effective economic and public health measures. Nevertheless, the Alcohol Policy Index, the first on this issue, revealed wide variation in the strength of alcohol control policies among the 30 countries in Europe, Asia, North America, and Australia that constitute the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. These countries received scores ranging from 14 to 67 out of a possible 100 points.

[Source: Brand, Saisana, Rynn, Pennoni, Lowenfels, PLoS Medicine 2007, 4(4):752-759].

 

 

Is happiness measurable and what do those measures mean for policy?

International Conference, Rome, 2-3 April, 2007.

Organised jointly by the OECD, the Bank of Italy, the Centre for Economic and International Studies (CEIS) of the University of Rome “Tor Vergata” and the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission, this International Conference aimed at gathering recent advances, studies and surveys on happiness and life satisfaction. These advances, so some would argue, open the door to different paradigms for policy-making: paradigms, for instance, which see people’s happiness, rather than national income, as the goal that policy-makers seek to maximise. Summary

>>more

 


Measuring active citizenship in Europe

CRELL report presents the Active Citizenship Composite Indicator (ACCI) for 19 European countries. ACCI is based on the framework proposed by the project "Active Citizenship for Democracy" and combines 63 basic indicators coming from the European Social Survey

 

 

Measuring Well-being and Societal Progress CRELL/OECD organised a workshop aiming at setting the direction for OECD and JRC research in this area over the coming years. Among the objectives were the challenges involved in constructing aggregate measures of well-being, and the specific role of education in such aggregate measures. Milan, 19-21 June, 2006. Conclusions and Follow-Up

 

 

The Joint Research Centre contributes to Yale & Columbia U. Environmental Performance Index

The Pilot 2006 Environmental Performance Index (EPI), developed by the Center for Environmental Law & Policy at Yale University and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) at Columbia University in collaboration with the World Economic Forum and the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, formally released in Davos, Switzerland, at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum on Thursday, 26 January 2006.

More on the story:
Press Releases
Main EPI Report
(654 Kb)

Full EPI Report (4,986 Kb)

Sensitivity Analysis (485 Kb) by JRC-IPSC

 

 

Joint JRC-OECD Handbook on composite indicators

Nardo, M. M. Saisana, A. Saltelli and S. Tarantola (EC/JRC), A. Hoffman and E. Giovannini (OECD), Handbook On Constructing Composite Indicators: Methodology And User Guide, OECD Statistics Working Paper. For a more technical paper see Tools for Composite Indicator Building, JRC EUR 21682 report
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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