Awards & Prizes

The Karl Pearson Prize was formerly named after one of the Founders of statistical science, whose many contributions include the chi-square test for goodness of fit, the principal component method of dimension reduction, and the method of moments for statistical estimation.

On the other hand, Pearson was an active eugenics proponent. While Pearson’s eugenic ideas are not surprising for his time, we reject them today, as we reject all discriminatory ideas. In coherence with ISI principles, we find it inappropriate to keep using Karl Pearson’s name in association with prizes, lectures and other awards. Therefore it was decided to rename the Prize and honor the many Founders of Statistics with this Prize.

The International Statistical Institute (ISI) and the International Biometric Society (IBS) are jointly sponsoring an initiative to fund two young statisticians who are members of both Societies to participate in the 64th ISI World Statistics Congress 2023 in Ottawa. 

IBS considers the Young Ambassadors Program open to all of our younger members, though we particularly encourage applicants from lower and middle-income countries to apply. The funding for this opportunity is a joint initiative of the ISI and the International Biometric Society (IBS). The call for applications is open. The candidate must be a current member of the IBS. If not already a member of both Societies, a successful applicant is expected to join ISI as well as the IBS.