Nature is (rightly!) concerned about official statistics around the World and ran a feature article on the topic in its issue of 12 March 2026. It stresses the multiple reasons for supporting a sound, independent, trustworthy national statistic office. The article explores the issues with four national statistic bureaux, for the US, the UK, India, and Argentina. (As my whole career has been associated with the French official statistics institute, INSEE, first as a student, then as a researcher, I would have liked to hear some external views on this institute, albei methinks the situation is not as dire here, despite a permanent reduction in staff over the past decade, to the point the landmark INSEE building in Malakoff has now been dismantled.)
The issue with the US system is predictably mixing political interference à la Trump and budget cuts again à la Trump. Referring to a 2025 ASA report. Longitudinal surveys have been terminated after running 30 years. While preserving its famous independence, the UK Office for National Statistics is facing mistrust from the public that in turn reduces the reliability of its labour survey, with a response rate of 13% in 2023! The UK Government has responded by creating a National Statistician…. Concerning India, well-known for its love of official statistics, the concern is again with the government interventions against NSC, and Argentina suffers from the same woes, Milei refusing an update of the way inflation is calculated by the national institute NDEC, leading to the departure of the current director (whose remote predecessor was put on trial by an earlier government!)
“Decisions based on incomplete or incorrect knowledge are invariably bad, even harmful. That is why the statistics that governments collect need to be as accurate and as verifiable as possible.”
In what appears (now?) as a common trend in Nature, a tribune on the same topic appeared in the following edition of 19 March 2026. With the call to “fix surveys”, in part battered by systemic underfunding and sapped by low answer rates. And the somewhat paradoxical complaint that private philanthropies like the Gates Foundation is supporting less worldwide surveys like the Demographic and Health Survey Program, which should be the responsibility of governments.
Despite protests from the statistical community, incl. mine’s, the Regents of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln have voted for the closure of the Statistics Department (as well as three others) and the firing of their faculty. (Several of whom I know personally.) While this is a shocking event, untimely in the age of Data, this alas aligned with the legislative vision of science and academia under the Trump.2.0 yoke. In the meanwhile, the faculty is looking for positions before the termination of their appointment in Lincoln.
I
