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Improving Official Statistics
Improving Official Statistics
Improving Official Statistics
The International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS) is pleased to announce the launch of the 2025 IAOS Young Statisticians Prize. This international prize encourages young statisticians to take an active interest in official statistics and is awarded for the best paper in the field of official statistics written by a young statistician.
In addition to the monetary prizes, the first-place winner(s) receive travel funds to present their paper at an international conference. Details of the conference will be decided in conjunction with the winner and may include the 2025 ISI World Statistics Congress to be held in The Hague, Netherlands in October 2025.
Submissions should address and propose solutions to pressing methodological or strategic issues in the area of official statistics at the regional, national or international level, be no more than 4,000 words, be submitted in English and should not have been previously presented in a public forum or published. A maximum of three co-authors is allowed for each submission and an author can participate in only one submission.
An international panel will judge submissions based on the following criteria:
The 2020 prize winner, Ms. Kenza Sallier, shared her tips on preparing a winning submission in this presentation (LINK). Her presentation is recommended viewing.
Papers must be submitted before 11:59 pm (UTC) on 21 February 2025.
The decision of the panel will be final. Prizes will only be awarded if papers of significant quality are submitted.
The author(s) of the best paper will be awarded:
Prizes may also be awarded to those in second and third place:
A prize will also be awarded to the best paper from a Lower and Middle Income Country/Region:
Prize winning papers will be considered for publication in the Statistical Journal of the IAOS (SJIAOS).
To be eligible, authors (and co-authors) must:
Submissions must comprise a maximum of 4,000 words (including abstract, titles and references) plus the filled-in submission template plus a cover page that must include:
Any material beyond the core text of the paper, such as table of contents, references, appendices, tables, and graphs, must be contained within the maximum of 4,000 words. Any submission exceeding 4,000 words plus cover page will be disqualified.
Please submit papers, in MS Word or compatible format[3] to iaosysp2025@gmail.com
You may also submit questions you have about the competition to this e-mail address.
[1]Full-time, part-time, or contractual employees or interns are eligible and employees or interns who also teach or study on a part-time basis are eligible. Professional consultants or members of the teaching profession carrying out a contract with the NSO agency are not eligible.
[2]A National or International Statistical Organization or the Statistics Department of a Central Bank, Ministry or Regional or Local Government in a decentralized National Statistical System or non-statistical international organization.
[3]In Times New Roman (size 12) font, with side, top, and bottom margins of 1 inch (25.4 millimeters).
2025 IAOS Young Statisticians Prize Poster English (176 KB)
2025 IAOS Young Statisticians Prize Poster Chinese (212 KB)
2025 IAOS Young Statisticians Prize Poster Russian (184 KB)
2025 IAOS Young Statisticians Prize Poster Spanish (200 KB)
The International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS) is pleased to announce the results of the 2024 IAOS Young Statisticians Prize. A total of 23 submissions were received in 2024, from 35 authors / coauthors, and 21 different countries. Through a two-stage process, an international panel assessed the papers for their scientific/strategic merit, originality, applicability in statistical offices and quality of exposition.
The winner will present their paper at a mutually agreed international conference. Winning papers are also eligible to be published in a future issue of the SJIAOS.
The IAOS would like to congratulate the winners and thank all entrants. We would also like to thank the International Judging panel for their efforts.
The winning papers are:
1st place
Ms. Manel Sloken, Mr. Jel Vankan and Mr. Peter-Paul de Wolf (Statistics Netherlands): From COACH to COACH+: Automating Output Checking with Human-in-the-Loop
2nd place
Mr. Alexander Imbrogno (Statistics Canada): Including Non-Binary Gender in the Calibration Strategy for the Canadian Long-Form Sample Survey Weights
3rd place
Mr. Adrian Urban and Mr. Simon Rommelspacher (Federal Statistical Office Germany): RUMS – how to compare structures of enterprise groups?
The special commendation for a paper from a developing nation is awarded to
Ms. Carmelita G Esclanda-Lo, Ms. Chelsea Anne Ong and Mr. Gabriel Masangkay (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, Philippines): E-Commerce Price Index Prediction with Time Series Mining and Automated Machine Learning
This is Netherland’s 1st first place, with Canada & Germany adding to their medal tally. Canada remains at the top of the ‘Olympic medal’ leader board with four ‘gold’ medals. This is the first ‘medal’ for The Philippines.
The International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS) is pleased to announce the results of the 2023 IAOS Young Statisticians Prize. The standard of submissions was very high and we would like to thank all those who entered.
For the first time in the Prize’s history, we have awarded a joint first place prize. Two papers stood out on scientific/strategic merit, originality, applicability in statistical offices and quality of exposition.
The first place winners will present their papers at a mutually agreed international conference. Winning papers are also eligible to be published in a future issue of the SJIAOS.
The IAOS would like to congratulate the winners and thank all entrants. We also thank the International Judging panel for their efforts.
The four winning papers and their authors are:
Joint First Place winners:
Ms. Joanne Yoon (Statistics Canada):
Classifying Respondent Comments from the 2021 Canadian Census of Population using Machine Learning Methods
Mr. Nelson Chua and Mr. Benjamin Long (Australian Bureau of Statistics):
It’s time to build a small area estimation methodology for time-to-event data
Second Place:
Mr. Ryan Covey (Australian Bureau of Statistics):
Integrating Big Data and Survey Data for Efficient Estimation of the Median
Third Place:
Dr. Alba Cervantes Loreto (Statistics New Zealand):
Modelling self-identification of Māori businesses in Aotearoa New Zealand
The special commendation for a paper from a developing nation is awarded to
Mr. Benjamin C.H. Chan, Mr. Ian Y.C. Ng and Ms. Natalie K.P. Chung (Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong, China):
Anomaly Detection in Trade Declarations using Deep Learning Techniques: A Risk-assessment Approach to Identify Misclassification and Incorrect Valuation
The International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS) is pleased to announce the results of the 2022 IAOS Young Statisticians Prize. Once again, the standard was very high and we would like to thank all those who entered.
The winner will present their paper at a mutually agreed international conference. Winning papers are also eligible to be published in a future issue of the SJIAOS.
The IAOS would like to congratulate the winners and thank all entrants. We also thank the International Judging panel for their efforts.
The three winning papers and their authors are:
The special commendation for a paper from a developing nation is:
Our congratulations to Statistics Canada for winning first place for the third year in a row, to BPS-Indonesia for their second special commendation, and to Statistics Spain and Westat for their first winning submissions.
The International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS) is pleased to announce the results of the 2022 IAOS Young Statisticians Prize. Once again, the standard was very high and we would like to thank all those who entered.
The winner will present their paper at a mutually agreed international conference. Winning papers are also eligible to be published in a future issue of the SJIAOS.
The IAOS would like to congratulate the winners and thank all entrants. We also thank the International Judging panel for their efforts.
The three winning papers and their authors are:
The special commendation for a paper from a developing nation is:
The IAOS is very pleased to announce the results of the 2020 YSP competition. Once again, the standard was very high, and we would like to thank all those who entered. This year, in addition to first, second and third place winners, a new category for a paper from a developing nation was awarded
The winner will present their paper at the next IAOS conference. Winning papers are also eligible to be published in a future issue of the SJIAOS.
The IAOS would like to congratulate the winners and thank all entrants. We would also like to thank the International Judging panel for their efforts.
John Pullinger
IAOS President
2019 – 2021
First place
“Toward More User-Centric Data Access Solutions: Producing Synthetic Data of High Analytical Value by Data Synthesis”
Presentation
Ms. Kenza Sallier (StatCan)
Please watch: Kenza Sallier present her winning YSP paper to an ONS audience.
Second place
“The R-Package surveysd: Estimating standard errors for Complex Surveys with a Rotating Panel Design”
Mr. Johannes Gussenbauer and Mr. Gregor de Cillia (Statistik Austria)
Third place
“Big Data, Differential Privacy and National Statistical Organisations”
Mr. James Bailie (Australian Bureau of Statistics)
Commendation for a paper from a developing nation went to:
“Household Consumption Allocation and the Collective Household Model: Children Share of Household Resources in The Gambia”
Mr. Madi Mangan (The Gambia Bureau of Statistics)
The results of the 2019 IAOS Prize for Young Statisticians are as follows:
First Prize
“Detecting geographical differencing problems in the context of spatial data dissemination”
Vianney Costemalle (INSEE, France)
Second Prize
“Administrative data informed donor imputation in the Australian Census of Population and Housing”
James Farnell and Peta Darby (Australian Bureau of Statistics)
Third Prize
“Using address histories to improve the link rates of surveys in the Integrated Data Infrastructure”
Nancy Wang (Statistics New Zealand)
The results of the 2018 IAOS Prize for Young Statisticians are as follows:
First Prize
An index-based approah to determine partnership in register-based census
Ms. Helle Visk (Statistics Estonia)
Second Prize
Reproducible Analytical Pipelines in Offender Management Statistics
Mr. Christopher Fairbanks (UK Government Statistical Service)
Third Prize
Adjusting for linkage errors to analyse coverage of the Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI) and the administrative population (IDI-ERP)
Mr. Hochang Choi (Statistics New Zealand)
The results of the 2017 IAOS Prize for Young Statisticians are as follows:
First Prize
The Dissemination Game: How to communicate official statistics to non-expert users
Ms. Hannah Thomas (United Kingdom)
Second Prize
Telematics Data for Official Statistics: An Experience with Big Data
Mr. Nicholas Husek (Australia)
Third Prize
Improving Seasonal Adjustment by Accounting for Sample Error Correlation Using State Space Models
Mr. Andreas Mayer (Australia)
The results of the 2016 IAOS Prize for Young Statisticians are as follows:
First Prize
Balancing Input-Output tables with Bayesian Slave-raiding ants
Mr. Rolando Gonzales Martinez (Bolivia)
Second Prize
Variance reduction using a non-informative sampling design
Mr. Thomas Zimmerman (Germany)
Third Prize
CURIOS: A framework to optimize CAPI surveys using paradata
Mr. Antoine Rebecq and Mr. Thomas Merly-Alpa (France)
The results of the 2015 IAOS Prize for Young Statisticians are as follows:
First Prize
Big Data and Semantic Technology: A Future for Data Integration, Exploration and Visualisation
Andreas Mayer and Andrew Harwood (Australia)
Second Prize
Targeted record swapping on grid-based statistics in Hungary
Beata Nagy (Hungary)
Third Prize
Iterative method for the reducing the impact of outlying data points: ensuring data completeness
Svetlana Jesilevska (Latvia)
The results of the 2014 IAOS Prize for Young Statisticians are as follows:
First Prize
“Linking, selecting cut-offs, and examining quality in the Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI)
by Laura O’Sullivan (New Zealand)
Second Prize
“Transforming how we produce statistics: An inside perspective”
by Michelle Feyen (New Zealand)
Third Prize
“Domains similarity models in synthetic estimation”
by Andrius Čiginas (Lithuania)
The results of the 2013 IAOS Prize for Young Statisticians are as follows:
First Prize
Using kernel methods to visualise crime data
by Kieran Martin and Martin Ralphs [United Kingdom]
Second Prize
The policeman and the statistician – on the quality of the raw data in official statistics
by Anton Färnström [Sweden]
Third Prize
ABS iPhone App – the way of the future?
by David Sullivan [Australia]
The results of the 2012 IAOS Prize for Young Statisticians are as follows:
First Prize
Exploratory Analysis of the Patterns of Missing Data in the UIS Education Database
Miguel Ibanez Salinas; UNESCO
Second Prize
Elementary Aggregate Indices and Lower Level Substitution Bias
Duncan Elliott (primary), Joseph Winton, and Robert O‘Neill; United Kingdom
Third Prize
A Case Against the Skip Statement
Samuel Spencer; Australia
The results of the 2011 IAOS Prize for Young Statisticians are as follows:
First Prize
Morpheus: an innovative approach to remote data access
Julia Höninger (Germany)
Second Prize
Widening the data net: NSO leadership role
Sarah Conn (Australia)
Third Prize
Trajectory modelling of longitudinal non-response in business surveys
Kate Smaill (New Zealand)
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