The legislative decree 218/2016 states the presence of Istat within public research institutions; moreover, it introduces the evaluation role of ANVUR – National Agency for evaluating the university and the research system. According to the evolving regulatory framework in this field, Istat has defined and strengthened the role of research in its activity, developing infrastructures and planning tools that fit the role Istat is called to play:
- Istat charter: research is aimed at, from one side, improving the quality of statistical information and of the processes utilised to produce, develop and disseminate official statistics, from the other side, at introducing the results arising from methodological and thematic research into the above mentioned processes.
- Three-year strategic plan 2017-2019 (available in the section Quadro strategico e Piano di attività, among the Disposizioni generali): the methodological and thematic research is one of the seven Istat strategic plans (PG3 – Development of methodological and thematic research). In particular, the PG3 defines the investment in methodological, technological, economic and social research that Istat is going to pursue with the whole scientific community, at a national and international level. It includes: the initiatives that foster and stimulate the collaboration for the experimentation, the development of new techniques and methodologies, the implementation of thematic research projects; the commitment for the so called blue sky research and for the integration of new sources – big data and open data – while producing and disseminating official statistics.
- Three-year programme for thematic and methodologic research: definition of contents, infrastructures and tools for research activity.