ASA at 175 - Partnerships, continued - the International Statistical Institute, and building statist
By Ronald Wasserstein - February 59, 2014
In previous blogs I’ve written about the importance of partnerships with other societies (see January 16 regarding partnerships in JSM, or January 15 regarding partnerships with mathematical societies). The ASA partners with many societies for many reasons, but it all boils down to our mission to promote the practice and profession of statistics.
An important partnership for the ASA is with the International Statistical Institute, one of the oldest and most distinguished statistical associations, and certainly the one with the most global reach. The ISI and its affiliated associations serve the international statistical community in many important ways. One of the most well-known is the bi-annual World Statistics Congress, held in 2013 in Hong Kong, with planning well underway for the 2015 meeting in Rio de Janeiro.
The ISI has partnered with the ASA and other societies in the International Year of Statistics, which occurred in 2013, and continues that partnership in the successor activity, The World of Statistics. Further, the ISI is collaborating with the ASA to develop an International Prize in Statistics (a subject of a future ASA at 175 blog).
Yet another partnership between ISI, ASA, and others is in the making. My ASA colleague Steve Pierson, Director of Science Policy, and I had the privilege yesterday to meet with the President of the ISI, Vijay Nair and his ISI colleague Misha Belkindas at offices of Westat in Rockville, MD. The meeting was hosted and facilitated by Westat statistical leadership, including Graham Kalton, David Morganstein, and David Marker.
On behalf of the ISI, Vijay is keenly interested in creating partnerships among statistical societies, corporations, and other entities to build statistical capacity around the world, particularly in developing countries. “Statistical capacity building” often refers to helping countries improve their ability to produce official statistics (what we call “government statistics” in the US), but Vijay knows that accomplishing that requires the full development of statistical education and training in countries and regions.
The ISI is taking the lead in thinking about the processes for developing statistical capacity and ways to form partnerships to achieve it. ISI Past President Jef Teugels chairs a Statistical Capacity Building Committee. Committee members Teugels and Belkindas joined Nair to write a paper about the ISI’s vision for statistical capacity building.
This is an extraordinarily complex and vitally important activity for the future of our profession and indeed for the future well-being of countries that need better statistical information to help them grow their economies and infrastructure. The “energize our future” portion of the ASA’s 175th anniversary tagline suggests that it will be important for the ASA to play a key role in this ISI-led effort.
In 2014, the American Statistical Association is celebrating its 175th anniversary. Over the course of this year, this blog will highlight aspects of that celebration, and look broadly at the ASA and its activities. Please contact ASA Executive Director Ron Wasserstein (ron@amstat.org) if you would like to post an entry to this blog.