The Institute for Employment Studies (IES) is an independent, apolitical, international centre of research and consultancy in human resource issues. It works closely with employers in the manufacturing, service and public sectors, government departments, agencies, professional and employee bodies, and foundations. For over 30 years the Institute has been a focus of knowledge and practical experience in employment and training policy, the operation of labour markets, and human resource planning and development. IES is a not-for-profit organisation, which has a multidisciplinary staff of over 50. IES expertise is avail­able to all organisations through research, consultancy, publications and the internet.

IES has long experience of working with labour market statistics both in the UK and internationally. Inter­nationally IES was involved in developing the OECD Canberra Manual covering the measurement of Human Resources for Science and Technology (HRST) and developing and validating a methodology for measuring High Technology employment for Eurostat.

IES is the UK partner in the Euronet consortium of labour market research institutes across the EU and has extensive experience of collaborative research in multi-partner teams. IES has also carried out commissioned research and evaluations for the European Commission, mainly DG V and DG XII, for the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions and for Eurostat. IES staff is currently involved in the TSER-funded SOWING Project (Information society, work and the generation of new forms of social exclusion) and in benchmarking international science and technology indicators for the DG XII-funded REIST project.

Through its extensive work over many years for government departments in the UK and other public sector organisations both internationally and locally, IES has built up a detailed knowledge of labour market statistics and the strengths and weaknesses of the various methodologies available for collecting and analysing them.