The President of the NSI, Assoc. Prof. Atanas Atanasov, PhD, awarded certificates to two interns who worked in the NSI under the IPA 2019 Multi-beneficiary statistical cooperation programme. Nikola Kovacevic, a junior statistician from the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia, conducted his internship in the field of ‘Quality Management’, mentored by Galja Stateva, PhD, State Expert in the Planning, Coordination and Quality of Statistical Surveys Department, and Zeljko Asentic, Assistant Director for Demographic and Social Statistics from the Statistical Office of the Republic of Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina - conducted his internship in the field of ‘Use of Multiple Sources - Administrative, Big Data and Geospatial Data for the Production of Official Statistics’ with mentor Arslan Ahmedov, Head of Regional Statistics and Geographical Information Department. Antoaneta Ilkova, Director of the Multi-Domain Statistics, Methodology and Cooperation Directorate, also attended the closing meeting.
‘I am glad that you trusted the NSI as an institution where you can gain experience and knowledge. I hope that you have been able to learn important skills and good practices that you can apply effectively in the further performance of your duties in the statistical offices of your countries. Such methods of knowledge and skill transfer are the way to achieve a higher quality of statistical research at the national, European and international levels and will ultimately benefit the users of statistical information. I would also like to thank your mentors who have successfully shared their knowledge and experience’, said Assoc. Prof. Atanasov during the meeting.
The two young statisticians said that their three-month experience at the Bulgarian Statistics Office was extremely useful for their future work, and they will put what they have learned into practice. They also pointed out that during their time here, they had the opportunity to get acquainted with the natural and cultural sights of our country.
The IPA 2019 Multi-beneficiary statistical cooperation programme is the main instrument for providing technical assistance to EU candidate countries to align their current methodologies and practices with the European Statistical System. The NSI actively participates in the programme and has a good tradition of training interns from the statistical offices of the Western Balkan countries and developing bilateral and regional cooperation.
