The launch of the United Nations (UN) 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 was a historic event, uniting countries around the world around the shared agenda of sustainable development with a more balanced relationship between human beings and the planet. The SDGs affect or impact almost all aspects of life, as indeed does the technological revolution, empowered by Big Data and their related technologies. It is inevitable that these two significant domains and their integration will play central roles in achieving the 2030 Agenda. This research aims to provide a comprehensive overview of how these domains are currently interacting, by illustrating the impact of Big Data on sustainable development in the context of each of the 17 UN SDGs.

As economies, societies, and environments change, official statistics evolve and develop to reflect those changes. In reaction to disruptive innovations arising from globalisation, technological advances, and cultural changes, the pace of change of official statistics will accelerate in the future. The motivation for change may also be more existential than that of the past as official statisticians consider the survival of their discipline. This article examines some of the emerging developments and questions whether they present threats or offer opportunities.

This article argues that to prioritise the data requirements of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) monitoring framework, requiring 232 global indicators and spanning the full spectrum of development issues, over the development of national statis

Since the 1950s regional policy and spatial planning in Ireland has been largely reactive and opportunistic in nature rather than strategically or ideologically driven. As a result, inconsistent approaches to regional and spatial issues have arisen, driven mainly by short-term goals or issues of the day rather than adherence to a clear, long-term strategic objective. Thus, Government interest in regional and spatial issues has ebbed and flowed in reaction to the events and economic climate of the day; during the 1950s interest surged in reaction to rural decay, emigration and economic failure, waned with entry in to the European Economic Community in 1973 and the prolonged recession of the 1980s and re-emerged in response to growing congestion problems arising from the ‘Celtic Tiger’ at the turn of the century and led to the publication of the National Spatial Strategy (NSS) in 2002. This history is outlined and brought up to date, to incorporate recent developments, such as the publication of the government strategy document ‘Putting People First’. It is hoped that this may provide context to facilitate forthcoming deliberations around the recently announced ‘replacement’ NSS for Ireland.

What makes an island a Small Island Developing State or SIDS? There is no universally agreed definition, so what are the characteristics that single out these islands from the thousands of others? The variety of classifications being used by the United Nations and other International Organisations suggests that the label Small - Island - Developing – States does not adequately describe those characteristics. This article investigates what those characteristics might be and whether a criteria-based classification for Small Island Developing States is feasible.

Over recent years the potential of big data for government, for business, for society has excited much comment, debate and even evangelism. Described as the ‘new science’ with all the answers and a paradigm destroying phenomena of enormous potential big data are all the rage [1,2]. Official statisticians, already with a long history of using non-survey data, which are often very large in terms of volume, must decide whether big data is really something new and useful or just hype.