1. Objectives for Regional and Urban statistics
G. Schäfer

2. Status and recent achievements
Good level of coverage of regional statistical indicators
Functional cooperation on all levels (Member States, Commission Services and within Eurostat)
Improved ways of communicating regional and urban statistics
Increased interest in the domain by users
Increased policy relevance
Smooth evolution of NUTS Regulation
However: Quality concerns of users on completeness and timeliness

3. Cooperation is the key for further improvements
Main partners:
- Member States;
- Commission Services (REGIO, AGRI, MARE, others;
- Eurostat units (sectorial responsibility for indicators);
- Partners with common objectives (ESPON, …);
- European and International Institutions (Committee of the Regions, OECD, UN, ..);

4. Further consolidation of the statistics themselves
- data quality (clear guidelines, definitions, validation);
- data coverage, completeness;
- specific quality measures, e.g. estimations of missing values
- feedback to data producers;
- use of standards, i.e. transmission (SDMX), but also common Eurostat tools, i.e. for validation;

5. Continuation of urban statistics
- Quality improvement programme is on-going; - Reduced set of core variables with focus on relevance, coverage, quality; - Consistent set of cities according to objective criteria; - Increased cooperation with Member states; - Attempted full coverage of Member States.

6. Support for policy use - Understanding of policy requirements on data
- Direct support of policy initiatives, e.g. Next Cohesion Report
- Regional data and spatial analysis combined for policy analyses, such as airport capture study
- Special emphasis on indicators for Europe2020 and relevance for structural funds
- Key word is 'Evidence based policy'

7. Added value to statistics
- Functional typologies (urban-rural, degree of urbanisation, maritime policy); - Planned extension of NUTS Regulation to key functional areas; - Geocoding of European Surveys (LFS, EU-SILC,…); - Supportive actions to NUTS issue, such as LAU lists.

8. Illustration of regional/urban statistics
- Improved communication on existing indicators, i.e. quality, completeness;
- Publications, such as Regional Yearbook plus Statistical Atlas;
- Presentation of data values, Regional Statistics Illustrated;
- Treatment of functional areas, e.g. metropolitain areas;
- Additional commentary - Statistics Explained articles.

9. Thank you
for your attention!