Eurostat is one of the sponsors of the SDMX (Statistical Data and Metadata eXchange) initiative that aims at standardising and modernising (“industrialising”) the mechanisms and processes for the exchange of statistical data and metadata among international organisations and their member countries. The other sponsors of SDMX are the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the European Central Bank (ECB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United Nations Statistical Division (UNSD), and the World Bank. In short SDMX is an integrated solution consisting of three main elements:
- technical standards (including an Information Model)
- statistical guidelines0
- an IT architecture and tools
The objects necessary for data exchanges are stored in SDMX repositories which contain code lists, concepts schemes (i.e. concepts and their definitions), category schemes (e.g. list of themes for organising a domain), data structure definitions, metadata structure definitions, etc. These repositories are publicly available and free of charge.
Link to resource :
- Eurostat SDMX repository (called Euro SDMX Registry, used for ESS implementations)
- SDMX Global repository (called SDMX Registry, used for global implementations)