The Finnish Statistical Society was founded in 1920 as a not-for-profit scientific society. The purpose of the Statistical Society is to promote statistics research, teaching and application and act as a connecting link between statisticians and statistics producers.
The Statistical Society has about 300 members who are working in universities, research institutes, government and municipalities, in organizations and in companies, primarily in research, design, teaching and in expert positions. The members also include statistics students.
The activity of the society is managed by a Board that is selected yearly. Every other year, the society arranges the national Statistics Days and additionally 2-3 annual afternoon seminars, the topics of which relate to current events in statistics and statistical operations.
The society co-organises shared events with scientific organisations, organisations that produce statistics and research institutes. The events are publicised in the society’s website and in the Newsletter.
During the Statistical Days, Statistical Society gives out the Leo Törnqvist award for the best Master’s thesis approved in a university or college during the last two years. Every second time the Statistical Days are held, a prize is also given to the best PhD dissertation.
Since 1975, the Statistical Society has published annually the Statistical Society yearbook, which contains topical statistical articles and reviews, e.g. the presentations held in the afternoon seminars and during the Statistical Days. Since 2012, the yearbook has been published every second year.
Together with the other Nordic statistical societies, the Finnish Statistical Society participates in the publication of the Scandinavian Journal of Statistics (SJS). In addition, since 1976, the society has published statistics dissertations in the Statistical Research Reports series.
The Nordic statistical societies take turns organising the Nordic Conference on Mathematical Statistics. In addition, Nordic statistical societies organize a statistics conference together every third year. The Finnish Statistical Society is also a member of the International International Statistical Institute, whose world assembly was arranged in Finland in 1999.