Assessment criteria and guidelines

Align with the OS Research priorities

In the 2009/10 funding year, proposals must address one or more of the following priorities.

Please note that the examples in bullet points are not mandatory research questions but are to give researchers an idea of the depth and breadth of the priority.

Develop theoretical and conceptual frameworks that support statistical measurement, data analysis and analytical commentary of an important policy matter across the OSS, e.g. sustainability, human rights, income, and wealth. The framework could:

• promote standards, consistency and comparability across data collections;
• improve the usage of statistical indicators in the OSS to support decision making.

Contribute to the understanding of social, environmental, or, economic change, including dynamics and transitions, through the development and application of quantitative techniques such as administrative data, longitudinal analysis, or, spatial analysis. Research could include:

• investigating the possibilities and techniques for geospatial innovation to enhance accessibility and generate interest and knowledge in official statistics;
• producing economically more meaningful ways in a world of floating exchange rates to classify overseas assets and liabilities, and, overseas payments and receipts than the current Balance of Payments and Foreign Direct Investment statistics?
• developing techniques to improve the understanding of the relationship between current income source and permanent income.

Investigate and further the research regarding the development of innovative techniques in survey methodology that make use of technological and methodological advances and/or modelling. Research could include:

• developing appropriate estimation techniques for drawing inference from incomplete administrative data;
• improving methods for the estimation of the variance produced by the imputation techniques common to national statistics offices;
• analysis of survey data combined with administrative data in the absence of a unique identifier.

Investigate how state sector agencies that collect official statistics can reduce respondent load. This may include the development of techniques and/or methods to define, measure, manage or assess respondent load issues across the Official Statistics System. Research could address questions such as:

• investigating issues like sensitivity to content, repetition, and general anti-compliance feeling;
  how to quantify load and/or how can the resulting measures be used in decision making?
• what is the effect of changes in respondent load on response rates over the OSS, and for particular subpopulations, or on the cost and quality of data collection?
• how to reduce respondent load by obtaining quality administrative and survey data?

Improve and enhance the Official Statistics System (OSS)

Research proposals are required to:

align strategically with the OSS vision to build an informed society through official statistics

• have significant impact on the OSS
• demonstrate potential to widely disseminate results into the OSS (the panel will be interested in the dissemination methods and the target audiences).

To assess the significance of the proposal to the OSS, the panel will consider the following issues:

• the priority of the statistics (Tier 1 or another OSS output of proven importance)
• whether the (new) statistic meets the needs of the user
• the priority of the proposal in the relevant organisation (if more than one proposal is being considered from any organisation)
• the overall value of the intervention (nature of short- to long-term pay offs)
• the breadth of applicability of the research results (confined or spread across the OSS)
• the practical ability to implement research results.

Collaborative benefit

Applications must demonstrate:

• collaboration between a state sector agency and a university, or a private researcher (or another state sector agency)
• how knowledge gained during the project will be transferred into the OSS
• how a junior research member will be mentored.

Robust project methodology

The methodology will be assessed by the OS Research selection panel. Proposals must provide comprehensive detail of the project methods while using language panel members from all research disciplines can grasp. Proposals should include:

• the research review process (in most instances external peer review)
• an evaluation process with criteria (for research project outputs and research outcomes)
• clearly set-out steps for undertaking the research
• a well-defined context.

Cost effectiveness

A sound, transparent budget of moderate cost ($40–$100,000) will be considered. State sector salaries are donated in kind to OS Research. Costly and multi-year projects will be considered if they are sufficiently meritorious.