Contributions sought for a special issue of Survey Methodology on the theme: Shaping the future of survey statistics in the data-driven era

Sample surveys play a fundamental role to collect granular data. They are a vital component of international statistical systems, providing governments, businesses and civil society with the information they need to make good decisions. Due to the need to obtain more granularity in data for policy and empirical research, alternative data sources are being considered for use in statistical processes. Given the abundance of new sources of data, there has been a prominent shift of focus on research and policy to understanding and addressing the challenges posed by new forms of data and new data collection tools and methods. Probability surveys continue to be crucial, not just for collecting data that are unavailable in alternative data sources, but also for assessing the quality in these alternative data sources, particularly with respect to representativeness, coverage and measurements.

Survey sampling and estimation methods have been progressively evolving, following the development of new tools of data collection: smart devices as meters, mobile phones, GPS systems and several new applications. Methods have been continuously advancing to measuring uncertainty and data quality, integrating Big and small data sources and developing methods to make inferences from the data, particularly through small area estimation. At the same time new methods for analyzing large volumes of data, such as machine learning and AI methods, are emerging. Moreover, rigorous approaches for incorporating and making inference from non-probability sampling have been at the forefront of recent research with the aim of ensuring equitable statistics and representativeness of minoritised populations. Finally, with new forms of data, data integration and multisource statistics, there are new challenges arising in protecting the confidentiality and privacy of statistical units, moving towards perturbative methods and accounting for these perturbation errors in statistical analysis.

Proposed special issue:

In light of the current and fast-changing pace of the data ecosystem, the planned special issue will cover many topics on the future of survey methodology and survey statistics, including:

• New forms of data collection (e.g. smartphone), passive data collection and other innovations in data collection
• Mixed mode data collections, adaptive and responsive survey designs
• Total survey error and methods for correcting non-sampling errors (coverage error, measurement error, non-response bias)
• Quality frameworks for non-survey data, uncertainty quantification for multiple-source statistics and variance estimation methods
• Future of survey sampling, including sampling Hard-to-Survey groups and ensuring equitable statistics
• Research and development with applications of machine learning and AI methods in survey research
• Data integration of multiple sources of data, including non–survey data (administrative data, census data, paradata and big data) and non-probability survey data
• Statistical data integration
• Small area estimation including data integration with non- survey data
• Using non-survey data to augment survey data collection, estimation and bias mitigation
• Non-probability sampling and compensating for selection bias
• Privacy and confidentiality

Researchers considering contributing a manuscript for this special issue are kindly requested to indicate their interest by sending a tentative title and short abstract to the guest editors (maria.ferrante@unibo.it and natalie.shlomo@manchester.ac.uk). The deadline for submitting manuscripts to the special issue has been extended to January 31st, 2026.  All those wishing to submit a manuscript are encouraged to present their paper at the ITACOSM2025-IASS Satellite Conference to the 2025 World Statistics Congress. This conference will be held July 1st-4th, 2025 in Bologna, Italy. The website for further information is here: https://eventi.unibo.it/itacosm-2025.

All manuscripts submitted to the special issue will be subject to the standard rigorous peer-review that applies to all submissions in Survey Methodology. Note that Survey Methodology usually publishes innovative theoretical or applied research papers, and sometimes review papers, that provide new insights on statistical methods relevant to National Statistical Offices and other statistical organizations. Please consult the Survey Methodology website: www.statcan.gc.ca/surveymethodology, for more information about the journal.

The link to submit papers to Survey Methodology is through the submission portal: https://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/surveymeth. Please indicate that the submission is for the special issue in your cover letter.

Please do not hesitate to contact the guest editors if you have further questions.

Sincerely,

Maria Rosaria Ferrante
University of Bologna
Italy
maria.ferrante@unibo.it

Natalie Shlomo
University of Manchester
United Kingdom
Natalie.shlomo@manchester.ac.uk