useR! 2024

The Open Time Series Initiative aims to bridge the gap between academic research and official statistics. Founded and developed at the Research Software Engineering and Economic Data section at KOF Lab at ETH Zurich (RSEED), the initiative plans to start its activities around publicly macroeconomic data. First, we publish an R based framework to provide the time series community with reusable code to source publicly available data and process data publications into time series. Second, we plan to publish maintain and version over 100'000 machine-readable macroeconomic time series following modern open science standards (FAIR principles). Third, we integrate processing of publicly available data into academic teaching helping to make sure the next generation of public servants become Open Science leaders who are familiar with the Swiss data landscape. Our exploratory discussion with the Swiss Federal Statistical Office (FSO) and the pioneering collaboration with the Swiss Secretariat of Economic affairs (SECO) make us optimistic that our starting push will lead to spillovers to other fields of research and parts of official statistics. Proposal: https://rseed.ch/opnts-ord-proposal/