Work on constructing a relatively simple, yet broadly representative global indicator—i.e., one representative of an entire country or entire economic sectors—has been ongoing for several years. Various European Union agencies, Eurostat, the OECD, national statistical offices, and academic and other research institutes are participating in this effort.
Since 2002, various variants of indicator construction have been tested, and new data sources are being selected. Regardless of the difficulties associated with numerically mapping both technical aspects and economic effects, the number of EU countries covered by research on ICT applications varies, which compounds the difficulties in comparative analyses. The EU itself now includes 25 countries, and three candidate countries are also taken into account. Hence, the problem of national and sectoral sample sizes has recently had to be included in the work on the methodology for calculating global indicators.
Methodological work is being conducted quite broadly, and optimal solutions have not yet been identified, neither for international nor national comparisons. For this presentation, three global comparative indicators have been selected, which are most frequently presented in European Commission publications recently, as they are reasonably well-tested in all countries. The principles of their calculation, which are of interest mainly to methodologists, will not be discussed in detail.