Accreditation practices at the Hungarian Central Statistical Office

1. Accreditation practicesat the Hungarian Central Statistical Office Zoltán Vereczkei Methodology Department Hungarian Central Statistical Office www.ksh.hu E-mail: zoltan.vereczkei@ksh.hu Telephone: (+36-1) 345-6541 Data without Boundaries Workshop on Accreditation for Transnational Access to Official Microdata for Research Purposes Lausanne, 19th-20th March, 2014

2. Summary of types of access

3. About transnational access… • Legal background: no distinction between national and foreign researchers (not limited to EU) • Low interest from foreign researchers (NSI receives few request… usually asking for information on access or methodology; or requesting EU microdata sets from Eurostat); limited experience with foreign researchers • Current developments (due from May, 2014): • New accreditation procedure • New standardised templates for all channels (also in English) • New standardised contracts, confidentiality declarations and terms of use documents (also in English) • New „useful information for researchers” document (focusing on channels of access in safe environment – also in English) • New, much more detailed website content on access conditions and types of access (also in English)

4. About the accreditation procedure… • Access in safe environment (safe centre, remote access, remote execution), and release of anonymised microdata sets are foreseen for scientific purposes only (use of PUF or customised tables is available for everyone) • Researchers (and their research institutions) have to be accredited and the scientific potential of the research proposals have to be checked [researchers with or without the background of research institutions can be granted access] • Both the researcher accreditation and the evaluation of the scientific potential of research proposals are done every time a research proposal is received. • No list of accredited research institutions or researchers (we rather evaluate every time than to update a database periodically…) • Task divided between the experts of Dissemination Department and the experts of the subject-matter departments

5. Most important accreditation criteria

6. Reflections on speeding up transnational access…from the Hungarian perspective • The „language barrier”: we put a lot of effort into producing more transparent procedures and English material to increase our transparency and to support foreign researchers (it takes time) • Demonstrated positive experiences: there is no procedure in place to speed up transnational access, but it has significant value added in building trust between HCSO and researchers • Forums (such as DwB) is a very useful way of sharing practices and solutions (national practices can further be developed or upgraded based on experiences; thus national practices will converge… it takes time) • Common standardised methodology for application forms: we think a recommendation (common agreement) on the content and related procedures would be useful in practice • Sharing of good practices and „success stories” would definitely help a lot to make one step forward • It is very important to know what foreign researchers expect from us (same as national researchers?). If you do not know them, it is very difficult to meet their needs

7. Thank you for your attention! Zoltán Vereczkei Methodology Department Hungarian Central Statistical Office www.ksh.hu E-mail: zoltan.vereczkei@ksh.hu Telephone: (+36-1) 345-6541