IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) will host, in the second semester of 2015, the 60th edition of the International Statistical Congress...

IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) will host, in the second semester of 2015, the 60th edition of the International Statistical Congress, organized by the International Statistical Institute (ISI), http://www.isi-web.org/ , a scientific organization created in 1885 and located in Hague, the Netherlands. This association is currently formed by approximately 2,000 members internationally-acknowledged in the field of statistics of more than 130 countries. About 4,000 participants are expected for the Congress, including representatives of official statistical agencies all over the world and specialists in related areas, such as demographers, economists, social scientists, among others. The objective of this event is to discuss theoretical advances and better statistical practices in different countries all over the world.

In the last Congress (http://www.statssa.gov.za/isi2009/), held in 2009, in Durban, South Africa, Brazil was represented by the President of IBGE, Eduardo Pereira Nunes, and several other representatives of the statistical agencies and Brazilian universities. The topic of the Congress was Statistics: our past, present and future. There were more than one hundred sessions and as many articles selected and presented in thematic round tables, besides almost one thousand abstracts. It was the first time in 124 years that this meeting was held in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Being conducted every two years, the following Congresses will take place in Ireland (2011) and Hong Kong (2013). Next year, the event, which will be held in Dublin between August 21 and 26 (http://www.isi2011.ie/content/), will innovate by bringing into discussion the “topic of the day”, comprising works related to the topic Water, quality and quantity. The Congress is expected to gather statistics from all existing segments: official statistics, survey and sampling, computer and mathematics, probability and stochastic modeling and education.

International Statistical Congresses are important for statisticians of all areas to identify new investigation topics in the fields of academic and official statistics.