History

Our Origin

In 1853, Adolphe Quetelet convened in Brussels the first of a series of International Statistical Congresses. There were eventually nine Congresses in all, and at their best they were energetic and productive exchanges among the leading statisticians of the day. However, the Congresses lacked an adequate continuing organization or continuing membership, and they barely outlasted the death of Quetelet in 1874. In 1885, nine years after the last of the Congresses, the ISI was founded at a meeting in London called to celebrate the Jubilee of the London Statistical Society. The 81 members, who joined in London or were invited to join by that initial group, were the elite of that era’s statisticians in government and academia, and they sought to recapture the energy of the Congresses but with a well-established continuing structure and a stable membership base. They established our first statutes, and our first half-century was a period of general stability. There was some growth in membership and publications, but major changes, such as an affiliation with the League of Nations that was proposed in 1920, were resisted.

Post-War Reorganization

The September 1938 Session in Prague was cancelled in its second day because of the threat of war, and the ISI essentially went into hibernation. We were wakened with the 1947 Session in New York, principally organized by Stuart A. Rice with an ambitious goal of adapting the ISI to a new era. New statutes were presented to the General Assembly and adopted by mail the following year, with this charge by Rice:

The ISI of the future must be regarded as more embracing than the single society of elected members that we have been in the past. … On every hand there is a new dependence upon statistics and statisticians. … There is a crying need for world leadership in this field. … Such leadership will require the revitalization of our membership. … It requires that we burst the bonds of our present statutes which restrict the capacity of our organization for evolution, growth and adaptation to the period in which we live.

The new statutes brought two fundamental changes. Before the war, the ISI had sought to influence governmental statistical agencies by facilitating collaboration and by encouraging uniformity in statistical definitions and data collection, but this role was largely taken over by the newly created United Nations. Now the ISI took on a new mission, emphasizing international communication among statisticians rather than with governments, and supporting the international promotion and dissemination of research on the theory and practice of statistics. The second major change was in the introduction of the idea of Sections of the ISI, and the formation of several Committees that in many cases lead to the creation of a Section. While the first Section was only formally adopted by the General Assembly in 1957, the fruits of this far-reaching innovation are clearly evident today with the five Sections we now have, all of which grew from this post-war reorganization. For the first time, the ISI saw itself as an umbrella organization reaching well beyond its narrow base of elected members. It was a new type of professional society, one that facilitated international communication among groups of individuals with common interests, not all of them members of the ISI. The ISI was to be the organizational key to international statistics; it did not pretend to comprise all of international statistics itself.

The Future Directions of 1979

In 1977, the General Assembly set up a Committee on Future Directions that led in 1979 to the adoption of further organizational changes, including setting up our current system of governance, with an elected Council and an Executive Committee consisting of the President, President-Elect, and the three Vice-Presidents. With the formation of the Council, the Presidents of the Sections now had a strong voice in ISI governance. The Future Directions Committee also carefully considered a series of more far-reaching changes, notably opening membership in ISI to any and all statisticians who may wish to join. However in the end, they rejected this proposal and instead reaffirmed what they called the ISI’s status as an Academy, with restricted and elected membership. They argued that the careful and conscientious election of the world’s best statisticians as members was key to the high international reputation of the ISI, and they considered that reputation in turn key to other developments they envisioned, such as founding at the ISI an International Center for Research and Development in Statistics, and actively helping with the education and training of statisticians in developing countries.

The Present

It is the consensus of the Executive Committee and of the Council that the time is right to again re-examine the programmatic emphases of the ISI. In light of our experiences over the two decades since our 1985 Centennial and the new challenges of the 21^st century, we ask if we should again make an evolutionary change in the ISI and if so, what change? Accordingly, in August 2004, the Council approved the appointment of a new Ad Hoc Strategic Planning Committee, charged with considering these questions and reporting to the Council in Sydney. The members of this Committee are C. Carson, D. Dawson, J. Deshpande, N. Fisher (Chair), N. Keiding, D. Moore, S. Richardson and D. Trewin. The Committee has begun its work and is considering a full range of questions, some as basic as supporting an enhanced role for the Sections and revisiting the possibility of open membership in ISI, and others as practical as how to best assure our financial future. Their recommendations are not yet ready at this writing, but it is expected that they will be circulated in advance of the Sydney Session so that we can have an initial discussion at the General Assembly. Some recommendations may be ready for adoption; others will surely require deliberation and refinement beyond Sydney, perhaps by successor committees. For my part, I am confident that whatever evolutionary changes emerge from this process will preserve what I regard as our central value: the ISI as facilitator of international communication in statistics, across nations and between sub-disciplines. We have played a uniquely successful role in this for 120 years. The keys to our success in these have been our Biennial Sessions and our flagship publications, augmented since 1948 by a network of Sections and Committees. Also, I expect that our Sessions and publications will continue to play their important roles in keeping us in touch as one organization, while we expand our efforts to reach out through Sections and Committees in new ways. Maintaining this communication across international statistics will be crucial to avoiding fragmentation as we also expand our outreach. I am convinced that we shall be equal to this, our central challenge, and that our future will be bright and prosperous.

Stephen M. Stigler
Former ISI President 2003-2005

Epilogue

The Future

Although the ISI is a society with a long history, it is constantly aiming at the future. We look at questions like what tasks will lie ahead, what new developments will be interesting for our members, etc.

One of the most imminent changes at this moment is the almost total transfer to electronic contact. The direct and quick contact by e-mail and web site has considerably changed the way a scientist works. And of course, the postal mailing costs are greatly reduced.

Despite all changes ISI will remain a truly international organization, bringing together statisticians of all different specializations.

ISI Presidents

ISI World Statistics Congresses