text: A reliable overview of the state of OSH is not an easy task, although the current information base is 
  already broad:**obligatory statistical data**,422**EU-wide surveys**, 423**and comprehensive reports and**
  **research on facts and figures, on policies, capacities and actions**, provided by OSH institutions, 
  agencies, universities and research institutes, professional organisations and international organisations 
  (e.g. ILO, WHO and OECD). The EU sources range from quantitative datasets, for example, Eurostat 
  statistics and large EU-wide surveys (e.g. ESENER,424 EWCS,425 LFS,426 Flash Eurobarometer 427), to 
  detailed background reports on risks, OSH systems and infrastructures (e.g. by EU-OSHA, Eurofound, 
  etc.) and evaluations and assessments of the level of implementation of OSH directives (e.g. by DG 
  EMPL and by SLIC or surveys facilitated by the National Labour Inspectorates 428). 
  
  The council Regulation (EC) No 2062/94 establishing EU-OSHA, mentions that:*‘the Agency's role shall*
  *be to […] collect and disseminate technical, scientific and economic information…’*.429 In addition, the 
  **EU OSH Strategy 2002 to 2006**430 defined such work in a better information base explicitly as a major 
  task of EU-OSHA:*‘The European Agency for Health and Safety at Work: - will set up a “risk observatory”,*
  *based on examples of good practice collected from firms or specific branches of activity; - will organise*
  *exchanges of experience and information by way of the systematic collection of data, with the support*
  *of Eurostat.’*Several publications from different periods document this approach. 431 