Past ACCFs

Head of Special Projects, UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) Montreal

Mr Simon Ellis is Head of Special Projects at the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) in Montreal, Canada. He is also responsible for statistics in science and technology, culture and communications as well as literacy, adult and vocational education.

The UIS Culture and Communications team is leading a major programme of activities to update international statistical instruments. This includes revision of UNESCO's framework for cultural statistics, and new standards for surveys of participation in cultural activities. The team has led a number of initiatives on indicators for the Information Society including the development of international indicators on ICTs in education, and language diversity on the Internet. Global surveys have recently been relaunched on press and broadcast statistics. The UIS Science team collects data on R&D activity across the world. Simon is also involved in the preparation of data and analysis for the Education for All Global Monitoring Report, and his teams provide data for many other international reports on development.

Before working at UNESCO, he used to run London Skills Forecasting Unit, which specialised in determining the range of skills required by London's businesses. He holds a doctorate in archaeology from the University of Oxford (1984), a Masters in town planning from the University of Newcastle (1991), and a first degree in education from the University of Southampton (1976). He has published books on Roman Housing, Geographic Information Systems, and the London economy.