Royal Statistical Society
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) is a learned society for statistics and a professional body for statisticians in the UK. It was founded in 1834 as the Statistical Society of London. At that time there were many provincial statistics societies throughout Britain, but most have not survived. The Manchester Statistical Society (which is older than the LSS) is a notable exception.
Instrumental in founding the LSS were Richard Jones (economist), Charles Babbage,Adolphe Quetelet, William Whewell and Thomas Malthus. Among its famous members was Florence Nightingale, who was the society's first female member in 1858. Notable RSS presidents have included William Beveridge and Harold Wilson.
The LSS became the RSS (Royal Statistical Society) by Royal Charter in 1887, and merged with the Institute of Statisticians in 1993. Today the society has 7,200 members around the world, of whom some 1,500 are professionally qualified. Unusually among professional societies, all members of the RSS are known as "fellows" — fellowship is not a mark of distinction.
The Society has been particularly engaged with the passage of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007, having long argued for legislation on statistics.
The RSS organises an annual conference, the most recent being at the University of York in July 2007, and awards Guy Medals in Gold, Silver and Bronze, in honour of William Guy. It also publishes the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, which currently consists of three separate series of journals whose contents include papers presented at Ordinary Meetings of the Society, namely Series A (Statistics in Society), Series B (Statistical Methodology) and Series C (Applied Statistics), as well as a general audience magazine called Significance.
The RSS team reached the finals of University Challenge: The Professionals 2006, where they were beaten 230 to 125 by a team from the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
