Minutes of the joint meeting of incoming and outgoing IAOS Executive Committee - Wednesday 24 August, 2011, Dublin

Transcription

1 Minutes of the joint meeting of incoming and outgoing IAOS Executive Committee - Wednesday 24 August, 2011, Dublin Attendees: Incoming Executive Committee: Stephen Penneck (President) Shigeru Kawasaki (President-elect) Nancy Gordon Prof. Innocent Ngalinda for Albina Chuwa Stephen Leung (SCORUS) for Petra Kuncova Ada Van Krimpen Outgoing Executive Committee: Haishan Fu Others attending: Siu-Ming Tam Frank Nolan Nataliia Begma Oksana Honchar Pieter Everaers Jo Green (minutes) Stephen Penneck welcomed members to the first meeting of the Executive Committee under his presidency. 1. Update from the ISI Council meeting 1.1 A short verbal report from the ISI council meeting was added to the agenda to bring a number of new proposals to the Committee s attention: A proposal to increase membership charges by ISI for Associations from ten to fourteen euros had been agreed by ISI A proposal to set up an awards committee had been put forward and the IAOS Executive Committee will be approached for a representative A proposal for short courses at the next conference in Hong Kong had been announced An advisory board on ethics is to be created and will be led by Dennis Trewin 1.2 The Executive Committee will need to decide if they wish to either absorb the increase in charges or increase the cost of membership. This issue will be discussed in more detail at the next meeting. Action: add this item to agenda for next meeting. 1.3 A representative for the awards committee will be identified and put forward for discussion at the next meeting. Action: Ada Van Krimpen to forward name of representative to Stephen Penneck. 1.4 The Committee will need to put some thought into the design and content of the short courses for the Hong Kong conference. Action: add this item to agenda for next meeting.

2 1.5 The Committee felt it would be a good idea to have an IAOS rep on the ethics advisory board. Haishan Fu had been approached to join the advisory board and accepted. 2. Feedback from the IAOS General Assembly 2.1 The issue of professional ethics was discussed at the General Assembly and provoked a number of different views from the audience, particularly on the recent Argentina issue. It was suggested that for IAOS, ethical issues could be raised via the website or via the ethics Committee. 2.2 The Committee agreed that a closer relationship between ISI and IAOS would be useful on any arising ethical issues. It was noted that Haishan Fu s membership on the ethics advisory board would provide a strong link. 2.3 The Committee suggested setting up a panel to work through any ethical issues. It was agreed that Haishan Fu would inform the first meeting of the ethics advisory board of this Committee s active thoughts. Action: Haishan Fu to inform the advisory board of the Committee s current thinking. 2.4 The Committee agreed that the Kyiv video which was presented during the General Assembly was very good. 3. IAOS contribution to the 2013 World Statistics Congress in Hong Kong 3.1 Hilkka Vihavainen provided a report on the IAOS proposals for the 2013 World Congress. The total number of sessions at the World Congress will be 228, with 110 invited paper sessions, which is less than this year s Congress in Dublin. Seventeen IAOS section proposals for invited paper sessions had been received to date. A final decision on these sessions will be made in February The Committee agreed that the 2013 programme should be balanced, restricted to official statistics and provide a mix of strategic and operational topics. A decision on the subject of the topics should be made as early as possible and specific comments should be sent to Hilkka Vihavainen within two weeks. Action: Committee members to send specific comments to Hilkka by 7 th September. 3.3 Among the sessions to be allocated to IAOS, one could definitely be allocated to SCORUS. The prospect of another slot for SCORUS was raised, but the Committee felt this might not be possible due to the reduced number of overall slots. However, the Committee agreed that SCORUS could put forward a proposal to request another slot. Action: SCORUS to draft a proposal and submit to Hilkka Vihavainen. 4. IAOS 2012 Conference in Kyiv Local organising committee 4.1a The Ukraine local organising committee advised the Executive Committee that the budget for the 2012 conference was soon to be finalised, but there have been a few issues concerning lack of available funding. 4.1b The Committee recognised the issue and suggested that some bridging finance

3 might be needed in the short term. To get a better idea of the scale of the problem, it was agreed that Mr Osaulenko would provide details to the Committee. Action: Oleksandr Osaulenko to draft a note through Stephen Penneck to the Committee explaining extent of financial problems. Action: Siu-Ming Tam to provide Pieter Everears with a short text to be used for promotional purposes by the international organisations. 4.1c The Committee suggested that funding might be sought from other organisations such as EFTA and ISI, in addition to the ten thousand US$ already offered by the World Bank. Action: Pieter Everaers to contact EFTA to find out if any further funding might be available Programme Committee 4.2a Siu-Ming Tam reported on the successful programme committee meeting and advised that Denise Lievesly had agreed to be the organiser of one of the plenary sessions. Sibylle Oppeln would be approached as a session chair and one other organiser was still to be considered. The high level programme structure is nearing completion and can soon be put onto the website. 4.2b The final timetable still needs to be decided, Stephen Penneck will work with Siu- Ming Tam to produce this and then update Committee members. Action: Stephen Penneck to decide final timetable with Siu-Ming Tam and update Committee. 4.2c It was suggested that a session devoted to international statistics would provide a VIP forum and could also bring more members. Action: Haishan Fu, Siu-Ming Tam and Pieter Everaers to discuss in more detail off-line. 4.2d The Committee agreed that time to present the winning paper for the Young Statistician s prize will need to be programmed into the timetable. Post-meeting note: Siu-Ming Tam and Nancy Gordon agreed that this paper will be incorporated into the Contributed Paper session that is most appropriate, depending on the subject matter of the winning paper. 4.2e Regarding SCORUS contribution to the Kyiv Conference, the Committee noted that the proposed titles of four sessions had been submitted by SCORUS. While the presentations for these sessions might not totally tally with the overall theme of the conference, Stephen Leung pointed out that there should be sufficient flexibilities allowed for these sessions to cater for the needs of participants interested in the subject area of regional and urban researches and statistics. The Committee noted this Governance Workshop 4.3a Stephen Penneck provided an update on the latest thoughts for the Governance Workshop and the latest list of countries to be invited. The Committee agreed that it was better to keep the workshop small. It was also suggested that the structure of the Governance Workshop held at the previous conference in Santiago may be a useful reference point for deciding the 2012 workshop. 4.3b The Committee agreed that a small working group, including Lidia Bratanova should be set up to look back at what was organised for Santiago and report back to the Committee. It was agreed that the list of countries to be invited should be left open and

4 discussed further at the next meeting. Action: Stephen Penneck to set up working group and report back to the Committee Statisticians training event 4.4a Pieter Everaers reported that he had been in recent discussion with EFTA about organising the Statisticians training event and agreed to provide his thoughts to the Committee within two weeks. Action: Pieter Everears to provide an update to Committee by 7 th September. 4.4b It was agreed that a communication plan is needed to entice more people to both the training event and the conference. The Executive Committee should do more to help the organising committee with this. The Programme Committee had discussed marketing and Alberto Ortega Venzor had offered to produce a marketing plan. It was suggested that a small advertising budget may be provided, but an IAOS budget report would first need to be considered. Action: Siu-Ming Tam to write to Albert Ortega Venzor to find out his time frame for the marketing plan, propose a small budget and report back to the next Committee meeting. 5. Young Statisticians Prize 5.1 A proposal of the schedule for the 2012 IAOS Prize for Young Statisticians and its announcement was put forward for consideration along with the suggestion to coordinate this event annually. Action: Any thoughts on the proposed announcement to Nancy Gordon by 9 September. 5.2 An eastern European representative for the selection committee should be decided by the Ukraine. Other members from around the world are also needed, in particular from Asia. It was suggested that the Deputy DG from Hong Kong might be approached for the Kiev prize. Action: Ukraine to suggest an eastern European representative for the selection committee. Post meeting note: Pieter Everears has proposed Joseph Oliensky for the Young Statisticians selection committee. 5.3 It was suggested that it would be beneficial to have overlapping schedules for the selection committees, so that 2 or 3 persons from each would roll over onto the next. To alleviate any concerns about timing or over-lapping issues, a high level timetable highlighting the key overload areas should be produced. Action: Nancy Gordon to produce a high level timetable covering a number of conferences. 5.4 The possible need for more resources was raised as an issue if running the Hong Kong competition in both English and Chinese was to be considered. It was agreed that the Chinese official at ISI would be consulted to seek their views so as not to offend. Action: Shigeru Kawasaki will ask for the opinions of the Chinese National Statistics Bureau during his visit to Beijing in late September. 6. Statistical Journal of IAOS 6.1 A progress report on the Statistical Journal was provided at the General Assembly. There were two outstanding issues to consider updating of the website and the current IAOS press contract.

5 6.2 During the discussion of the contract, which now runs to July 2015, it was suggested that the publishers are advised in writing of future IAOS requirements. These might include free on-line access to the Journal via the website, the possibility of free public access and the potential to broker deals with other associations. 6.3 It was agreed that there needed to be wider discussion on the press contractual issues as any proposed changes post 2015 will need to be planned ahead. Action: Stephen Penneck to circulate the current contract to Committee for further discussion during the next meeting. 6.4 Feedback to the authors of potential papers for the Journal should be provided as soon as possible. 7. SCORUS 7.1 Agreement is needed on how to distribute some funding from the IAOS membership fee to cover SCORUS administration. This could be managed by remitting a percentage of the current IAOS membership fee to SCORUS, or a simple grant of 1000 would be easier to administer. 7.2 The Committee were advised of the current difficulties in maintaining the SCORUS website due to lack of funding. Funding provided by IAOS was requested, but it was agreed that the finances would need to be reviewed before any commitment was made. Action: to be considered further at the next meeting. 7.3 It was suggested that there should be more collaboration between SCORUS and IAOS via possible integration with the ISI website. 8. Future working arrangements 8.1 Dates for future Executive Committee meetings have been proposed, the next meeting is scheduled for 15 September via telephone conference. Plans to sketch out the programme for the next two years and identify someone to look at the budget will be discussed. 8.2 Siu-Ming Tam requested some time for the Committee s informal views on Agricultural Statistics, this topic will be discussed in more detail with Jeff Teugels.