Applications are now open for the Royal Statistical Society’s 2024 Campion Award for Excellence in Official Statistics.
The prize, which is presented in partnership with CSW and the UK Statistics Authority, celebrates the role UK government statisticians play in answering some of society’s most important questions and rewards good practice in producing and presenting high quality statistics for the public good.
Chair of the judging panel Dev Virdee said this year the society is particularly keen to receive entries from projects that have “balanced value for money with meeting the needs of users”, and nominations from “users who have found excellent statistics that meet their needs”.
The award is named in honour of former RSS president, the late Sir Harry Campion, who was also the first director of the UK Central Statistical Office, the forerunner to the Office for National Statistics.
Last year’s winner was the Department for Education’s school census team for its work transforming access to school attendance data. The ONS's 2021 Census Outputs & Dissemination Team and ONS Digital Publishing Team were highly commended for its work to produce a range of products designed to ensure census results were accessible to different audiences.
Other winners in recent years include The Coronavirus (Covid-19) Infection Survey; Covid-19 Deaths by Ethnicity; and The Ofsted inspection data summary report.
Virdee said the winners of the award so far “have demonstrated the key role that statistics can play in providing the crucial information needed to tackle real life problems”.
Sir Robert Chote, chair of the UK Statistics Authority, added: “The Campion Award recognises innovation and high standards of delivery in the government statistical service. Its winners over the years have exemplified the GSS’s ability to meet the needs of users and deliver new insights about society, responding to emerging social and economic challenges. I am very much looking forward to reviewing this years’ entries.”
Nominations can be made here until Monday 15 April.