The 2026 edition of the biennial Nordic Statistical Meeting (NSM) will take in Copenhagen, Denmark, from 25-2 August, with an opportunity to attend a workshop on 24 August. The evebt brings producers and users of official statistics together to discuss trends, innovations, and shared challenges facing statistical systems in the Nordic countries. This year’s theme, “Change is the only constant,” frames official statistics as operating in an increasingly volatile environment — shaped by climate change, refugee flows, the COVID pandemic, Russia’s war against Ukraine, inflation, rising inequality, and the growing role of AI and tech platforms.

Against this backdrop, the conference asks how statistical offices can preserve trust, relevance, and comparability while identifying the meaningful signals among the noise — and where new opportunities lie amid the disruption. The programme is organized around four parallel themes, within which papers and abstracts are presented and discussed:

#1 New Data Sources
The data landscape is changing rapidly, with traditional surveys and registers increasingly complemented — or challenged — by new types of data, including big data from private actors. This theme explores how such sources can be harnessed to strengthen the relevance, timeliness, and quality of official statistics. Key topics include access to and collaboration with private data holders, methods for assessing data quality, the legal, cost, and trust-related issues that come with using non-traditional sources, and a look at how Nordic countries are putting these sources to use in practice.

#2 Product Development
This theme addresses innovation in official statistics at a time when demand for statistical products is expanding and diversifying, even as statistical organisations face constant pressure to be more efficient, agile, and user-oriented. Sessions will explore how innovation can drive efficiency, improve quality, and open new avenues for delivering value to society — covering the development of new statistical products and services, building innovation capacity and culture within organisations, and rethinking the role of national statistical institutes (NSIs) in society as user demands evolve.

#3 Dissemination and Communication
In an era of information overload, how official statistics are disseminated and communicated matters more than ever — citizens, media, businesses, and policymakers all need clear, timely, trustworthy information, even as misinformation and declining public trust pose growing risks. This theme examines how NSIs can strengthen their communication and delivery strategies to maintain credibility and impact, including communication strategies to counter information overload, visualization techniques for reaching wider audiences, personalization and new delivery channels, and ensuring accessibility and inclusiveness across diverse user groups.

#4 Modernising the Production of Statistics
The production of official statistics is undergoing significant transformation, driven by technological advances, new data sources, growing user demands, and budget constraints. This theme looks at how statistical organisations are modernising their production systems to become more efficient, resilient, and future-proof — covering automation and new technologies including AI, the transition from local systems to cloud-based solutions, evolving skill requirements (programming, agile methods, business architecture), and automated validation and error correction.

Note: the Monday 24 August workshop, hosted at Statistics Denmark, also includes small office seminars (Åland, Iceland, Greenland, Faroe Islands) and a dedicated session on digital transformation, featuring a live demo of Denmark’s GSBPM-based approach alongside presentations from Norway and the Faroe Islands, followed by a panel discussion on potential Nordic and international cooperation in this area.