Announcing the Competition for the 2012 IAOS Prize for Young Statisticians

The field of official statistics offers great challenges and opportunities. To encourage more young statisticians to take an active interest in official statistics, the International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS) is sponsoring a competition for the best paper in the field of official statistics written by a young statistician. In addition to the monetary prize, the winner will be invited to present the paper at one of the IAOS sessions at the IAOS Conference in Kiev, Ukraine, September 12 - 14, 2012.

We encourage submitters to address, and propose solutions to, pressing methodological or strategic issues in the area of official statistics at the national or international level. The paper must be ten or fewer pages in length, be submitted in English, and not have been previously presented in a public forum or published. An international panel will judge the papers based on the following criteria:

• Scientific and/or strategic merit;
• Originality;
• Applicability of the ideas in statistical offices; and
• Quality of the exposition.

The decision of the panel will be final. Prizes will only be awarded if papers of significant quality are submitted.

A maximum of three co-authors is allowed for a paper. An author can participate in only one paper. The author or authors of the best papers will be awarded:

• A cash prize valued at € 1,500 (divided among co-authors if applicable);
• An opportunity to present the paper at an IAOS session at the 2012 IAOS Conference, with airfare and hotel accommodation provided (for one author only in situations of co-authorship);
• Two years of IAOS membership;
• A certificate of award from the IAOS acknowledging success in this competition.

Prizes may also be awarded to those in second and third place:

• 2^nd Place - A cash prize valued at € 1000, 2 years of IAOS membership, and certificate;
• 3^rd Place - A cash prize valued at € 500, 2 years of IAOS membership, and certificate.

Prize winning papers will be considered for publication in the Statistical Journal of the IAOS.

To be eligible, authors (and co-authors) must:

• Be under the age of 35 on February 29, 2012;
• Be employed¹  by an official statistical agency²  between September 1, 2011 and February 29, 2012; and
• Be prepared to travel to Kiev in September 2012 to present the paper.

Submissions must comprise a maximum of 10 pages plus a cover and a page containing an abstract of no more than 15 lines. The cover must include: a mention that it is a 'Submission for the 2012 IAOS Prize for Young Statisticians', the title of the paper, the name(s), title(s), and e-mail addresses of the author(s), and the name of the employing official statistical agency. Any material beyond the core text of the paper, such as table of contents, references, appendices, tables, and graphs, etc must be contained within the maximum of 10 pages. Any submission exceeding 10 pages plus a cover and an abstract will be disqualified.

Please submit papers, in MS Word or compatible format³ , to iaos.prize.2012@census.gov. You can submit questions you may have about the competition to the same e-mail address.

The deadline for submissions is February 29, 2012. The winners will be announced by the end of July 2012.

¹ Full-time, part-time or contractual employees are eligible. Professional consultants or members of the teaching profession carrying out a contract with the agency are not eligible. An employee who also teaches or studies on a part-time basis is eligible.

² A National or International Statistical Agency, the Statistics Department of a Central Bank or the Statistics Department of a Ministry or Regional Government in a decentralized National Statistical System.

³ In Arial, Times New Roman, or other standard (size 12) font, with side, top, and bottom margins of 1 inch (25.4 millimeters).