Our key achievements in 2015
Foreword from the President
I’d like to begin this message with a heartfelt ‘Thank you.’ It is thanks to the support of members like you that 2015 has been another successful year for the Royal Statistical Society (RSS). As
I’ve said before, the Society is its members, and without you none of our successes would be possible.
As a charity, we advocate the key role of statistics and data in society, and we work to ensure that policy formulation and
decision making are informed by evidence for the public good.
We are now in the second year of our five year strategic plan, and we’ve been making good
progress implementing the associated goals outlined below. As a member, you may not be aware
of everything we do – and achieve – throughout the year, so I would like to take this opportunity to
highlight some of our key achievements in 2015, based around our four main strategic goals.
More than a quarter of RSS members are based outside the UK, so one particular highlight has been
the marked increase in our online video coverage of meetings, conferences and events, which has
enabled us to better engage with our international audience. We also welcomed more than 1,200
members to our new, free, e-Student category of membership, something which is particularly close
to my heart as I strongly believe in encouraging and supporting the next generation of statisticians
and users of statistics. I am also very proud of our Parliament Counts campaign, which galvanised
the membership, helped to raise awareness among parliamentary candidates, and resulted in 55 MPs
– plus their staff – signing up to statistical training.
These are just a few examples – I would encourage you to read the much more comprehensive
round-up below. This still by no means gives a full account of everything we have done this year,
but I hope it gives a taste of some of the great work you are helping us undertake in the areas of
education, research, campaigning, publications and events.
I hope that, like me, you are proud of everything that the RSS stands for – and accomplishes. Your
support is absolutely vital and you make a real difference by being a member. Thank you.
Peter Diggle
I PRESIDENT
www.rss.org.uk / www.statslife.org.uk OR t: 020 7638 8998
Goal one: For statistics to be used effectively in the public
interest, so that policy formulation and decision making are
informed by evidence for the good of society
•Our International Development Working Group supported the United Nations’ call for a data
revolution with its Sustainable Development Goals for world development, issuing a statement on World Statistics Day to which 45 other organisations
have signed up. We also hosted a related event at
the annual Hay Festival earlier in the year, with a panel discussion on the theme of ‘Measuring the world we want’
• We helped cast light on a major public issue about • You propelled us to great success with our
Parliament Counts campaign, which helped to
raise greater awareness among parliamentary candidates about the importance of statistical literacy. RSS members sent thousands of messages
to candidates around the UK during the general
election campaign, resulting in 324 candidates across the political spectrum signing up to the campaign, of whom 55 are now elected members
of parliament. The first statistical training session
for MPs took place on World Statistics Day on
20 October, with a follow-up session for MPs’ staff two days later
• In February we built on the Society’s long history why the polls got it so wrong in the UK election, by
holding a parliamentary event on the topic, as well
as hosting a public meeting for the official enquiry. We will also host the verdict of the inquiry in 2016
• We urged the government to maintain the
independence of economic statistics and supported its review of economic statistics, hosting an open meeting with the review’s author, Sir Charlie Bean
• We have represented members’ interests at the highest levels including speaking to government ministers such as Jeremy Hunt (Department of Health) about researcher access to health data, and
Ed Vaizey (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
about data sharing
of work on poverty and brought together over 100 attendees when we hosted the Statistics User
Conference on poverty statistics, jointly sponsored by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the
Resolution Foundation. Attendees were reminded of the strengths of poverty data in the UK, but
also some of the challenges around keeping the debate alive
www.rss.org.uk / www.statslife.org.uk OR t: 020 7638 8998
Goal two: For society to be more statistically literate, so that
people’s understanding of data, risk and probability can inform
their daily decision making, leading to better outcomes
• We launched free online scientific and statistical training for journalists to help journalists boost their grasp of science and complex numbers. In the first three months since launch, the science course has been accessed by 510 users, and the statistics course accessed by 774 users. In addition, in-house
training has been delivered by volunteers in 2015 to the Times, Daily Mail, Reuters, and six journalism training courses. The courses have been welcomed by journalists and widely publicised within the
journalism and journalism training communities
• We launched a new, free, e-Teacher membership
category for teachers in schools and further
education colleges, anywhere in the world, because we recognise that teachers play an essential role
in influencing and delivering statistical education. Well over 300 e-Teacher members have signed
up to help us improve statistical literacy, support
statistical education policy and practice, and
encourage students to enter statistical careers
• We published a new practitioner guide for the
legal profession, which attracted over 2000 page views on the RSS site. The guide is aimed at helping
judges, lawyers and other legal experts as well as forensic scientists and expert witnesses understand and interpret statistical evidence. A new Statistics and Law Section has been created to take
this forward
• We demonstrated our commitment to improving
statistical education, producing a joint report with
the Advisory Committee on Mathematics Education
(ACME) on how statistical content in a number of
non-mathematical A levels might be taught and assessed. The RSS and ACME are working together to take forward the recommendations, and an initial meeting with Ofqual was held in October to discuss the findings
• We have continued to train our 12 Statistical Ambassadors to increase their skills and confidence in providing media comment, with the aim of
improving the coverage of statistics in the media. Behind the scenes, our Ambassadors have worked with journalists helping them to understand
statistical aspects of stories, and have also
contributed to a guide to clinical trials for journalists. Media appearances have included BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 5 Live and local BBC radio shows
www.rss.org.uk / www.statslife.org.uk OR t: 020 7638 8998
Goal three: For a strong body of professional statisticians to
maintain and develop the skills they need so that they can critically
apply methodology, interpret results and communicate findings
• We have made over 100 Graduate Statistician awards so far this year – already up 16% on 2014’s awards – and with another round still to be approved
before the end of the year, we may beat our record of 120 (set in 2013)
• ‘Your career today is a…’ careers workshop • Our webinar programme has gone from strength to strength. By the end of 2015 we will have held eight Professional Statisticians Forum (PSF) events – seven webinars and one workshop at the RSS – covering a wide range of topics. The webinar in June presented by Dr Craig Mallinckrodt attracted over 100 participants, which was a record for PSF. Our Journal webinars have also been incredibly popular – over 200 people dialled in for the recent webinar with Brad Efron
resources are now available on the RSS website. Produced by volunteer statisticians working in pharmaceuticals, marketing, engineering and government, and tested in schools, these workshop resources support fellows to deliver a careers
workshop to upper secondary school students
• As part of our work to engage with our international
audience and broadcast our message to a wider group of stakeholders, we have uploaded more videos this year than ever before of our events,
lectures and conferences – almost tripling our output
from 2014 to 2015 (62 videos in 2015, compared to 21 in 2014), gaining more than three times the number of new subscribers to our YouTube channel and almost doubling the number of views received
• We are a respected training provider and adhere to a robust quality control system for all our
training courses. This year, we’re delighted to see that delegates on our courses rated them as 8.7
out of 10
• We launched a new Consultants Directory for Chartered Statisticians, enabling members of
the public to more easily access a professional
statistician with the right skills
www.rss.org.uk / www.statslife.org.uk OR t: 020 7638 8998
Goal four: For statistics as a discipline to thrive, so that
methodology is advanced, applied and made accessible, leading
to greater understanding of an increasingly complex world
• We launched our new, free, e-Student membership category, and have so far welcomed more than 1,200 members – these members represent the future of the discipline and we aim to provide them with support throughout their statistical careers
• We have campaigned (as per our Data Manifesto),
through the Council for Mathematical Sciences and
alongside bodies such as the Royal Society, for science spending to be maintained in the face of government budget cuts
• Our annual conference continues to grow in • Our journals continue to perform well in the Impact Factor rankings, with Series A, Statistics
in Society and C, Applied Statistics both increasing their citation rates and Series B, Statistical
Methodology ranking fourth in the Statistics and Probability category. As ever, we take these rankings with a pinch of salt, but believe that our journals continue to excel
influence and reach. In 2015, the conference was held in Exeter and the programme featured sessions organised by stream, or subject area. This
resulted in more attendees staying for the full three
days of conference than in 2014. Our exhibition area had the highest number of stands since 2008,
enabling our attendees to meet a range of
companies and organisations. Overall, the conference
strengthened its reputation as one of the best forums for networking and learning
• We’ve held more than 70 scientific events with over 4,000 people attending on topics as varied as Bayesian models for Health Economics
Evaluation, Concepts and methods in causal
mediation analysis, and Stochastic Epidemics
www.rss.org.uk / www.statslife.org.uk OR t: 020 7638 8998
RSS in the news
18 February 2015
The Guardian: We can’t vote on this government’s welfare reform with out-of-date data
22 May 2015
BBC Sport: Policing football behind the scenes
10 July 2015
Financial Times: George Osborne battles ‘lies, damned lies and statistics’
28 September 2015
The Guardian: The data skills gap: why we’re getting our statistics in a twist
19 October 2015
The Financial Times: Forget the big data hype – people want to know what it all means
Media coverage for the Parliament Counts campaign:
27 March 2015
The Conversation: Why it’s time for MPs to go back to school – knowing the numbers is part of their job
1 April 2015
Financial Times: Politicians need help to get a good grasp of numbers
20 April 2015
Financial Times: UK’s collective innumeracy adds up to a big problem
28 April 2015
Bloomberg: What The UK’s Pre-Election GDP Numbers Really Mean
29 April 2015
The Guardian: Lies, damned lies and statistics: 220 potential MPs sign up for stats training
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Thank you again for being a member of the RSS and for
helping us to promote the role that statistics and data
analysis play in society. We hope you will continue to be
a part of our active community in 2016.