policymakers demonstrate

576 Barcellan, Bøegh Nielsen, Calsamiglia, Camerer, Cantillon et al.
Partnerships Between the Statistical Agency and Universities
Driving Change
Developments in Catalonia illustrate the power of bottom-up initiatives as a
source of change when other conditions are ripe to leverage them. The push for
greater data access there came from a request received in 2010 by Idescat, the
Statistical Office of Catalonia. Two researchers, Caterina Calsamiglia and Maia
Guëll, had collected data on school choice (submitted preferences) and school
enrolment from the city of Barcelona. The fact that they had obtained these
data was in itself remarkable, and the result of lengthy trust-building with the
department of education of the city of Barcelona. The researchers had identified
interesting patterns in the school application behaviour of Barcelona families
and consequently raised the interest of the Department of Education to
understand the impact of socio-economic background on this behaviour. This
required linking the data with census data.
The data request came at a good time for Idescat. The institute was transitioning
from the traditional (stove pipe) linear model of data collection and
production of statistics, where different databases covering different aspects of
the same statistical object are kept distinct, to an integrated model, where common
descriptors in different databases allow for their integration, and new data
are seamlessly integrated with preexisting data as they arrive. Moreover, the
culture of the organization was receptive to change: the institute is a relatively
young and small organization and it had just appointed a new director, Frederic
Udina, with a prior career in academia.
The data request was used by Idescat to learn about protocols for secure data
access elsewhere (notably Norway and Denmark) and develop them in collaboration
with the two researchers. A contract was eventually signed between
Idescat and the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics (GSE), to which the
two researchers were affiliated. The linking and de-identifying were carried out
by Idescat for the researchers.
The contractual and logistical arrangements used for this first exercise served
as a template for other data requests. It eventually led to the signature of a
framework agreement between the Barcelona GSE and Idescat. The agreement
establishes a partnership between the two organizations, where Idescat links
and de-identifies the data (possibly first negotiating access with third party
owners) and Barcelona GSE provides technical support and some manpower.
A scientific committee with representatives from both the Barcelona GSE and
other leading research institutions screens data requests and projects and oversees
rules. The form of access is decided on a case-by-case basis depending
on the re-identification risk that the data contain. Partnerships between
Idescat and other research institutes are being developed alongside the same
model.