This document discusses trends and challenges facing Nordic statistics and suggests areas for potential Nordic cooperation. It notes that while statistics have historically played an important role, their influence may diminish as more actors share information. Two potential cooperative projects are outlined: 1) Creating scenarios about the future of Nordic statistics looking out to 2033 to understand uncertainties and opportunities. 2) Conducting horizon scanning to identify new emerging issues that need to be addressed. The goal is to help statistics remain relevant by anticipating changes and renewing methods and content.

1. Jan Dietz
Bergen, August 16, 2013
Nordic Statistics:
Ready for the Future?

3. ➜ Statistics in a «Brave New World»
➜ Trends and challenges...
➜ In search of new approaches
➜ Some suggestions for Nordic cooperation
In brief

4. Nordic statistics - a success story
- Pervasive influence - and in
everyday use
- Difficult to imagine Nordic
welfare (and democracy!) without
statistics
- Unique continuity
- Taken for granted and
sometimes invisible
Observing the phenomenon, changes the phenomenon

5. An impressive past -
and a challenging future
- Rational planning has lost credibility
- «Everybody» assembles and distributes
information
- Statisticians see the world chiefly from the
inside-out (rather than from the outside-in)
Statistics may be in danger of becoming marginalised!

6. Too much noise -
and too much traffic
Who are the real experts today?
Who is listening or noticing?

7. Black Swans
Knowledge in «Mediocristan» and «Extremistan»

8. Big Data - temptation or blind alley
- Big Brother is here
- Big Business is also interested
- Big Trouble ahead...?

9. Change - nothing new
...but it (almost) always surprises us

10. An interconnected world

11. Unpredictability and uncertainty
= Understanding the future ever more crucial - and it
cannot be extrapolated from the past
= Quantitative data must be supplemented and
enriched by qualitative analysis and human judgement
= Greater need for the «Big Picture»
Better roughly right than precisely wrong

12. Failed forecasts (a few examples)
- A New Ice Age (experts ca. 1988)
- Collapse in Western societies (Alvin Toffler)
- The 1987/88 stock market crash
- The financial crisis in 2008 (everybody)
- The Russian Revolution (including Lenin)
- The fall of the Berlin Wall (including
Vaclav Havel)
- Higher education means more tolerant
societies (sociologists in the 1920s)
- The Internet (including Bill Gates)
- The Arab Spring (not even Israeli
intelligence)

13. «Lydfilmen har ingen fremtid»
Bjarne Dietz, ca. 1927

14. Looking for new approaches
- Emphasis on anticipation of needs (rather
than on being told)
- A greater interest in the dynamics of
change and interplay of trends
- Knowing the limits - and improving the
quality - of probability estimates
- Experimentation with new methods and
techniques, drawing on i.a. foresight
(especially scenario methodology)

15. But above all:
We need to reflect on the rationale of
statistics in a nervous and demanding
information-consuming society

16. Three interesting areas
☛ Migration patterns in a global perspective
☛ Climate change: Mapping social effects
☛ Financial systems: Actors, networks and
behaviour
Examples of new possible approaches to content

17. Scenarios
Scenarios -
future
situations
Situation today

18. Years
Domain of
forecasts
Domain of scenarios Domain of
speculation
Domains and time horizon

19. ➔ Comprehensive, radically different stories about the
future
➔ Concerned with uncertainty (rather than probability)
➔ Plausible futures (not science-fiction!)
➔ Must not be confused with predictions, projections
and forecasts
➔ Preferably made through interactive, multidisciplinary
dialogue
Hallmarks of scenarios

20. Perspective: Outside-in
←←↑
Nordic
model
Financial system
Power shifts
Europe, Asia, USA
New
technology
Environment,
climate
Global
economy
Nordic
innovation
Demo-
graphic
changes
Values and attitudes
Migration

21. Nordic cooperation - why it makes sense
✔ A chance to experiment with foresight and new
approaches in a bigger yet familiar setting
✔ The major (strategic) challenges are largely
common to the statistical bureaux?
✔ Many of the external driving forces in a globalised
world are the same - and may be studied jointly
✔ Also diversity in perspectives!

22. Project 1: Scenarios about the Future of
Nordic Statistics
- A scenario process that investigates the driving forces
that shape or determine the future of Nordic statistics,
e.g. looking towards 2033
- Using scenarios to delineate the range of uncertainty
and to explore both opportunities and threats for the field of
statistics and the Nordic bureaux
- Using the scenarios to anticipate change and to
become (more) proactive in relation to governments and
the public
Understanding the role and proper influence of statistics

23. Project 2: Horizon Scanning -
New and Emerging issues
- A horizon scanning project with the aim of detecting new
and potentially important issues that need to be
addressed by the Nordic statistical bureaux
- Searching the periphery for weak signals, seeds of
change and new patterns: The social issues of tomorrow
- Complementing and improving ongoing studies and
time-series analyses
Renewing both method and content

24. Where is Nordic statistics heading?