Innovating statistics with data challenges

The BigSurv conference is about improving questionnaire research using techniques from computer science and big data. The first edition took place in Barcelona in 2018. In 2020, Utrecht University and CBS took the initiative in organising the conference. 'The aim of the online conference was to bring together researchers from different disciplines,' says Peter Lugtig, assistant professor of Methodology and Statistics at Utrecht University. Researchers from the social sciences, economics and official statistics are adept at evaluating data quality. They are concerned with measurement and selection errors and non-response. Computer scientists are further advanced in the field of data science and machine learning. We believe that the cross-pollination between these fields has great added value.'