"The objective of the INDICSER project is to develop indicators which provide information on the performance of service sectors in the EU. At the heart of the project are concerns that such indicators should be valid in terms of concepts, measurement methods and feasibility but should also have value in terms of their usefulness for policy. Therefore the approach adopted is to include both an EU-wide application of existing concepts and develop and experiment with new concepts. This will be carried out within an overall coherent structural framework designed to address the key issues of productivity and value for money. The indicators are divided into two broad areas, market services, whose performance are crucial for raising growth in the EU relative to its competitors, and non-market services, mostly government run, where it is important that tax-payers can assess how far public spending is effective, as well as their contribution to the economy. For market services the project will construct indicators that describe trends in growth and productivity in service sectors and indicators that are useful in analysing determinants of growth, such as innovation, ICT, intangible capital, competitive environment and foreign presence. In view of the global financial crisis, financial services will be covered in greater detail with new output measures developed and applied to a large set of EU countries. For non-market services much of the analysis will focus on indicators for health and education where significant new research is required on both the conceptual framework and practical implementation. Finally the project will also develop experimental indicators which might be useful in the future, covering insurance, collective services, distributive trades and research sector output. The result will be a comprehensive summary on indicators that might be measured, the feasibility of estimation given current data constraints and recommendations that will inform the using communities."