The SERV project aims at creating the conditions for sharing statistical services and supporting their integration in statistical production processes at national, ESS and Commission level.

It implements governance structure to enable sharing of services (e.g. service certification procedures), to choose at ESS level on how to make a service available, contributes to standardising the description of business needs by implementing the CSPA standard from UNECE ModernStats initiaitive.

It also provides a CSPA-compliant ESS Service Catalogue at the Commission/Eurostat containing services identified at ESS level but also from UENECE participants.

There is also an ESS/Eurostat SOA environment for sharing those services in ESS for which no replication is necessary.

Expected outcomes

The project will provide guidelines for describing statistical services in the ESS Service Catalogue following the CSPA standard with an integrated governance system for the lifecycle of services from their inception, to their use in production to their discontinuation.

Based on recommendations of CSPA and the ESS Reference Enterprise Architecture, standards and a framework for interoperability will be available for sharing services.

Also, a first set example services will have been developed, providing valuable lessons for the deployment phase where several services will be developed, covering the macro processes of GSBPM.

Expected benefits

1. Easier access to information at ESS level about statistical services definition including the implementations realised (software components).

2. Facilitation of faster implementation of new production processes.

3. Cost reduction on development and maintenance of information systems.

4. Easier maintenance of information systems: sharing of services will reduce the variety of components to be maintained in a particular organisation.

5. ESS level governance for prioritising those services most beneficial for the ESS globally.

Communication channels

The project has several communication channels. One channel is this website. Others are as follows:

- a Yammer private groups for all interested parties and bodies of the project (SG, TG, ESSnets, network of interested countries)

- a CIRCABC space where most documents are made available (SG and TG meeting documents)

- the Service Catalogue (URL to be made avaialble by end of 2017) will also be acentral point of information.

- a functional mailbox  ESTAT-ESS-SERV@ec.europa.eu to get in contact with the team directly.