European Forum for Geography and Statistics

The European Forum for Geography and Statistics (EFGS; formerly the European Forum for Geostatistics) is an interest organisation for people working or studying, or in any other way have an interest in the combination of geography and statistics.
Organisation
EFGS consists of a steering committee of national contact points, mainly persons with engagement in national statistical institutes.
EFGS organises annual meetings that are open to all members and others by invitation or on request.
EFGS attend the annual meetings of [http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Glossary:Geographical_information_system_of_the_Commission_(GISCO) GISCO WP] in Eurostat.
Objective
The general objective of the EFGS is to harmonise data, methods and results related to national statistics with geographical reference, and to support user communities with relevant and reliable georeferenced information, with emphasis on socio-economic statistics.
Background
The origin of the EFGS is the Nordic Forum for GeoStatistics (NFGS), having its first meeting in Voss, Norway in 1998. In addition to the Nordic countries, Baltic countries were also invited to the annual meetings. It soon became clear that several other national statistical institutes had interests in geostatistical work, and that there was a need for harmonising statistical products with a geographical reference. The first meeting of EFGS took place in . The number of national contact persons have after that grown to include more and more countries. The Steering Committee consists of the national contact persons from the national statistical organisations that participate in the ESSnet project GEOSTAT 1A - Representing Census data in a European population grid, mainly funded by Eurostat.
Today EFGS has national contacts from 43 states and territories from five continents, having annual conferences and meetings. The activities of the European Forum for Geography and Statistics are mainly concentrated on the development of the best practices in the production of geostatistics in Europe.
EFGS aims at being a global forum and umbrella organisation for GFGS (Global Forum for Geography and Statistics) conference. It has hence set up a task force to establish global cooperation in the field of geography and statistics, including amongst others the JRC in Ispra, CIESIN in the US. US Cencus Bureau, national institute for geography and statistics in Brazil, Australian Bureau of Cencus.
The Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) has written a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with EFGS, and the European Commissions Joitn Research Centre (JRC) in Ispra, Italy, has written a letter of intent (LoI), to underline the voluntary cooperation on issues in the field of geography and statistics. A voluntary cooperation that started with the Nordic statistical networks in 1998. EFGS has obtained observer status in the UN-GGIM:Europe meetings.

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