The 2019 Federal Statistical Research Data Centers (FSRDC) Annual Research Conference was held at the University of Wisconsin on September 5th and 6th. There were 158 registered participants. The first day of the conference was set aside as a business meeting for the FSRDC partners – the participating statistical agencies and institutional partners. This portion of the conference featured updates from several partnering agencies, including the National Center for Health Statistics, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. There was also discussion of the following agencies possibly becoming new partners: Statistics of Income, National Center for Science and Engineering, and Bureau of Transportation. We also heard of efforts to make a single application that spans all partnering agencies.
Staff from CDAR described recent changes in the Census Bureau’s disclosure avoidance processes. Presenters also described outreach efforts, the tracking of publications, and the Evidence-Based Policymaking Act (and the related Federal Data ). Participants also learned of recent and upcoming changes to the FSRDC network, including: the opening of the Wastch Front FSRDS, the closing of the Census HQ RDC and the opening of the DC Federal Reserve FRDC. In data news, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health is now available. Representatives of the Canada Research Data Centre Network and Statistics Canada provided an overview of their program and recent and upcoming programmatic changes.
The second day of the conference featured research presentations, primarily by academic researchers, based on work done in the FSRDCs. There were 28 presentations altogether, with 3 concurrent sessions running throughout the day. The day began with remarks by Rebecca Blank, Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Jason Fletcher, Executive Director of the Wisconsin FSRDC. Participants also enjoyed a keynote address by Bruce Weinberg, Professor of Economics and Public Administration at the Ohio State University. He discussed UMETRICS–a groundbreaking collaboration among the U.S. Census Bureau and Big Ten Academic Alliance researchers and Vice Presidents for Research that developed a means of tracing the economic impact of university research spending.
The 2019 FSRDC Annual Research Conference will be held in fall 2020 at the Kansas City Research Data Center.