On-Site Research to Improve the Government-Generated Social Science Data Base

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Support is being renewed for a landmark program of on-site research and visiting research fellowships operated by the American Statistical Association in cooperation with the U.S. Bureau of the Census and the National Science Foundation. The program has been successful in bringing highly expert, well- established statisticians and social scientists on the faculties of major universities to the Census Bureau, the nation's front- line data collection agency, where they engage in research aimed at improving the adequacy of governmentally produced and disseminated socioeconomic information. Visiting fellows work with Census staff to tackle especially difficult problems in the handling and analysis of data. The results of these efforts are cumulating into more efficient and effective agency procedures, more reliable and interpretable data products, and the introduction of more real-worldliness into the basic research and teaching agenda of visiting scientists once they return to their home institutions. A special arrangement allowing fellows to compete for continued support of research begun at the Bureau represents a further innovation created under this program. Among other benefits, the freer flow of expertise and knowledge between governmental data producers and academic researchers is breaking down obstructions to the policy usefulness of quantitative data and, by increasing their scientific research potential, helping to amortize the huge annual investment this nation makes in their collection.