JSS elects the President and Director-General every two years. They play important roles to support and develop activities of the JSS and help JSS contribute to enhance the discipline of statistics. Past Presidents and Directors-General were elected among statisticians as well as researchers in various related fields.
Nobuhiko Terui (May 2023 – May 2025)
Professor, Tokyo University of Science.
Dear JSS Members,
I was elected as the President of the Japan Statistical Society at the Board of Directors meeting in May 2023 based on the elections by the Board of Representatives and the members. I feel a heavy responsibility to carry on the achievements of past presidents, including former president Tomoyuki Higuchi. I am determined to do my best for the society with the cooperation of director-general Yoshinori Kawasaki, directors, auditors, and delegates.
The current Japanese 6th science, technology and innovation basic plan calls for the promotion of integrated knowledge, which aims to respond accurately to various social issues by comprehensively utilizing science and technology from all fields. We recognize that statistics and data science are a powerful common language for putting this into practice. Also, even before data science was called out, statistics has been expanding its applications in the humanities and social sciences. There has been significant progress in the practice of statistics and data analysis, not only in economics/management, sociology/behavioral science, and psychology, but also in linguistics, history, education, law/political science, etc. Data analysis is everywhere. An academic society called computational social science was also founded. They establishe an interdisciplinary field that does not rely on the discipline of a specific field and focuses on the social implementation of AI and data science technology. Furthermore, in economics, which has a strong discipline, applications of new statistics and data science are rapidly progressing, such as microeconomic/business empirical analysis and RCT practices based on natural experiments, which have become more sophisticated as access to microdata has expanded. These are evidence that statistics has permeated a wide range of areas of society, and we believe that expanding and deepening its applications will be important in ensuring the appropriate positioning of statistics. I understand that one of my missions is to consider the management of our society from the perspective of a situation in which statistical analysis and data science are pervasive in every corner of society, including the liberal arts.
On the other hand, there is a serious shortage of human resources who can teach statistics and data science. Although new undergraduate departments related to data science are being established at a rapid pace, it will take time to develop human resources. In this sense, the training course for statistical experts conducted by the Institute of Statistical Mathematics is a noteworthy activity with immediate effect, and the Japan statistical society certificate by the Japanese association for the promoting quality in statistics is an activity worthy of special mention. I believe it plays an important role in supplementing this shortage of human resources of statistics in Japan. Currently, various efforts are being required based on the keywords of mathematics, data science, and AI, and it is crucially important to determine how to make the presence of statistics visible to society. We believe that further expansion will provide an appropriate direction for the future positioning of statistics as literacy for people living in an IoT society.
I would like the Japan Statistical Society to further demonstrate its presence in society and academic fields, and to further develop internationally. I appreciate the continued support from our members.
Yoshinori Kawasaki (May 2023 – May 2025)
Professor, The Institute of Statistical Mathematics.
Dear JSS members,
I am pleased to accept the position of JSS Director-General. Looking back on my involvement with the society in terms of my contribution to its management, I first served as General Affairs Committee member for two years from September 2006. At that time, the GAC chair had various responsibilities such as accounting and application for Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research, and I had very difficult two years.
In terms of administrative contributions to the annual meeting of the Japan Federation of Statistical Science Association (JFSSA), which also serves as the annual meeting of the JSS, I was appointed as a program committee member in 2006 and as the chair of the steering committee in 2017 (vice chair in the previous year), which was a valuable experience for me.
The position of Director-General is of great responsibility that requires involvement in all aspects of society management, and I would be lying if I said I was not anxious about whether I could really handle this position based on my limited experience to date. However, President Terui, the Board of Directors, and the members of the various committees are all dependable. With the cooperation of all the board members and committee members, I am committed to the development of the JSS, and I look forward to your continued support.
Now, I would like to discuss what I consider to be important issues in the management of the society in the next two years.
First, regarding general management, we will consider how the association should be managed after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, not simply by returning to the way things were before the pandemic, but also by utilizing online/remote tools that have been widely used over the past three years. In addition, 12 years have passed since the JSS became a general incorporated association, so we will consider whether the organization’s structure and rules need to be reviewed in light of the matters handed over from the past Board of Directors.
The second is to constantly reexamine the source of the value of membership in the context of the Internet age, and to reflect this in the activities of the society. This challenge is not a sudden one, but one that has been confronting academic societies for several years, and I believe that the time will surely come when human networking, an important function of academic societies, will be re-discovered in the process of “back to normal.”
The third is to cooperate with the JFSSA and to promote international relations. This may not seem new in the sense that we participate in the Japanese Joint Statistical Meeting as one of the federated societies and provide editorial support for the Japanese Journal of Statistics and Data Science (JJSD). However, part of the publication costs of JJSD and the international sessions held at the JJSM and the JSS Spring Meeting are funded by a Grant-in-Aid obtained mainly by the efforts of the International Relations Committee of JSS. Since the research funding currently granted will end next March, the current Board of Directors will take on the challenge of applying for new research funding. We cannot promise up to the success of the outcome, but we promise to do our best.
In addition, we will also contribute to society through statistical education and human resource development, through the activities of the Special Committee of Statistical Education and the Quality Assurance Committee. We also maintain close cooperation with the Japanese Association for Promoting Quality Assurance in Statistics, which is the body that conducts JSS Certificate. We also compile various reports and proposals when necessary. Last, though not least, when replacing board members and committee members, we intend to select new members from the perspective of promoting diversity.
That is all I have to say about my aspirations, but I would like to conclude by saying a few words to our members. I would be very happy if you, our members, could help to enliven the activities of the Society by actively participating in the meetings and various projects.
