The Vital Role of Statistical Science in Assuring National Prosperity

Abstract

We live in an information and technology age, an age in which national economic prosperity depends crucially on the creation and management of information and on scientific and technological advances. At the same time, there is an increasing realization of the need to manage the impact of our habitation on our environment, so that we will bequeath to our children and our children's children a world that can still be enjoyed.

Central to all of these processes is data, its acquisition, analysis, interpretation and presentation and, of course, the Science that provides these things: Statistics. Yet the subject does not receive the recognition it needs, either as a vital part of making progress in government, business and industry, or as a subject worthy of study both for its own fascination and because of the rich variety of career paths it offers. The purpose of this conference was to bring these issues into focus: to highlight

1. the current and emerging needs for Statistics in advancing science, technology and environmental management;

2. what Statistics and statisticians have to offer in response; and

3. current international efforts to raise public awareness of the need for professionalism in Statistics, and to attract more people into Statistics as a career.

The speakers and discussants were members of the ISI Council, who had been able to assemble in Korea through considerable organisational effort on the part of ISI Vice-President Jae Chang Lee, and the generous assistance of the Korean Statistical Society and the Korea National Statistical Office, supported by the Korean Federation of Science and Technology Societies, Korea Science and Engineering Foundation, the Statistical Research Center for Complex Systems, the Bank of Korea, Chung Chung Nam Do, and the Korea Gas Corporation. A few Council members were not able to attend, and so other leading statistical scientists were invited in their stead.