IMS Resolution on Equal Opportunities

The IMS is an equal opportunity organization, which seeks to ensure that all of its members participate in all of its activities to the fullest extent that is appropriate, regardless of age, sex, race or ethnicity, subject matter specialty, or any other characteristic. These opportunities for participation include, but are not restricted to membership of its standing committees, its program committees for sponsored and co-sponsored meetings, and its honors and awards, including fellowships and special lectureships.

Ensuring fairness and diversity: Guidelines for IMS Awards Committees

The term ‘award’ is taken to include all IMS Awards and Honors (including but not limited to: IMS Fellowship, invitations to deliver Special Lectures, and IMS Travel Awards).

Significance of Awards
The IMS gives awards to recognize individuals who have excelled in a number of ways. Award winners are regarded as role models and leaders, so it is important that the award selection process recognize the achievements of a diverse group that reflects the breadth of membership of the IMS and of the profession. Diversity in award recognition gives visible evidence of the IMS’s commitment to equity. While selection committees strive for fairness in selecting awards based on established criteria, studies have shown that unconscious, unintentional assumptions can sometimes influence judgment, a phenomenon known as implicit bias.

The following guidelines may help awards committees improve the fairness and inclusivity of the awards process.

Composing committees and cultivating nominees
a) Appoint diverse selection committees and committee chairs. Individual Presidents should be aware of the current composition of each award committee when they are making their appointments and should attempt to take diversity into account.

Diverse committees provide access to a wider set of networks from which to cultivate nominations. Committee members and chairs from underrepresented groups may cushion against unintentional stereotyping. Do not expect committee members from underrepresented groups to advocate for diversity, it is everyone’s responsibility to do so.

b) The committees can make additional nominations before the published nomination deadline. Ideally, the committee members solicit nominations. But it is allowed that a committee member makes a nomination: then, being a nominator, that committee member has a COI and cannot vote on her/his nominee. All nominations are treated equally when taking COIs into account according to the existing IMS rules: https://imstat.org/ims-handbook/ims-handbook-committees/#conflict-of-interest-policy.

c) Each committee sets internal measurable goals with respect to diversity of the nomination pool. These measurable goals are communicated only and exclusively within the committee.

d) Generate a large and diverse pool of nominees. Awards are selected based on established criteria, so this step is crucial to ensuring that the pool of nominees contains as many eligible candidates as possible. Increasing awareness of the award among all members of the IMS has the side benefit of
increasing interest in the award and making the selection process more transparent and inclusive.

e) Publicize the award among underrepresented groups. When possible, encourage such groups to identify potential nominees.

f) Each award committee should periodically review and discuss practices for building a pool of nominees. Examine lists of nominees, short lists of nominees, and winners of awards for historical patterns, with an eye towards gender or other underrepresented groups.

g) Each award committee should periodically review the description and guidelines for the award. Particular attention should be paid to the language used to describe the award. For example, are the words used associated more often with males than females? Are there restrictions that could disproportionately affect certain groups? For example, do age limits affect women who take time off to raise a family? For suggested changes, make recommendations to the IMS leadership.

Selecting winners:
a) Discuss the process and criteria that will be used to evaluate nominees before reviewing nominations. Develop a rubric that matches published criteria for the award before reviewing any dossiers. Research has shown that implicit bias can enter via unintentional criteria shifting after nominees
are discussed.

b) Consider including those whose qualifications are strong but whose work may be less widely known. If prestige is considered important, it should be included in the prioritized list of criteria. If a letter of recommendation from an eminent scholar or leader will be given more consideration than a letter from a less well-known member of the society, nominators should be informed of this via the published criteria.

c) Make a personal list of top nominees before hearing the recommendations of any other members. This avoids the undue influence of one member and ensures that the list of viable nominees is as large as possible before the discussion begins.

d) Create short lists via inclusive rather than exclusive methods. For instance, select candidates that are outstanding, rather than finding reasons to eliminate candidates from consideration.

e) Ensure that every committee member’s voice is heard. Do not let any committee members remain silent.

f) Take adequate time to make a decision. Research has shown that implicit bias is mitigated when committees have time for thoughtful reflection and discussion, instead of making snap judgments.

g) Avoid conflict of interest. The following is a common conflict of interest statement for all IMS awards:
(i) No member of the Award Committee shall be eligible to receive the award during his or her term of service.
(ii) In the case of the Committee on Fellows, members of the Committee should not prepare individual nominations; however, they should actively recruit nominations for individuals they feel would be competitive for the award. Support letters should not come from members of the committee.
(iii) Members of the Award Committee who find that they have a potential conflict of interest with respect to a particular nominee, perhaps due to an existing or former professional or personal relationship, should exercise their best judgment. If in doubt, they should consult the Committee Chair, who should, in turn, consult the IMS President in cases where the committee itself is uncertain how to proceed.

Committee Voting

Votes should be by confidential ballot submitted directly to the chair. In every vote conducted, the chair and ex-officio members vote along with the rest of the committee. Where there is no simple way of breaking ties, the chair has an additional casting vote (see the additional voting procedures below for clarification of this point).

Conflict of Interest Policy for IMS awards, prizes, and lecture committees

The IMS gives a number of awards and prizes and it is important that conflicts of interest and the appearance of conflicts be avoided in the process of determining who should receive them. Members of a committee should abstain from voting on the candidates where a COI exists (but are allowed to participate in discussions) if they have the following conflicts of interest (COI).

A COI exists for the committee member if:

• the candidate is a close family relative
• the candidate is a former student
• the candidate is a current colleague from the same institution
• the candidate is a co-author within the last 5 years
• the candidate is being considered in a committee member’s institution for a job
• the committee member is being considered for a job in a candidate’s institution

• a close family relative

Voting Procedures for Committees involved in nominating officers or individuals for honors

In addition to the above general procedure, the following sets out voting systems for four different scenarios. It allows for multi-stage procedures and for discussion between stages. In case of an existing conflict of interest, see the end of the section.

Time should be allowed for discussion between rounds of voting; the extent of the discussion is up to the chair and the committee. This procedure does not consider the question of how candidates for voting are obtained, only how votes should be conducted and counted when they actually take place.

A. Selection of a single individual (e.g. Wald Lecture)
Stage 1:
Each committee member ranks up to three candidates: 1=first preference, 2=second preference, 3=third preference. If M preferences are used, then all the others are assigned rank M+1 when the votes are counted, so that if all 3 preferences are used then all the others are assigned rank 4. Within the M preferences expressed, equal ranks are not allowed. (So the voter may assign ranks 1-2-3-4-4-4-4-… or 1-2-3-3-3-3-3… or 1-2-2-2-2….)

The resulting ranks assigned by all voters are summed, and the two candidates with the smallest total rank are chosen to go on to the next stage.

If tie-breaking is needed, the number of first preference votes is used to break a tie (so among those with equal summed ranks, candidates with more first preferences are preferred). If this does not resolve the tie, there is a runoff vote between the tied candidates. In the runoff, each committee member including the chair has one vote. In the event of a tie in the runoff, the chair has the casting vote.

Stage 2:
The committee votes again (after further discussion) between these two candidates to yield the winning candidate. The chair has an additional casting vote in the event of a tie.

B. Selection of a slate of individuals of fixed size N: 1< N < 6 (e.g. any Medallion Lecture field where more than one candidate has to be selected). If N=1 then the procedures under scenario A above are used.

If there are segmented fields (e.g. a number for Probability and a number for Statistics) then the procedure operates separately for each field. In some cases these votes can be carried out concurrently, but in others they would have to be sequential (for instance if there is a “wild card” field.)

Stage 1:
If there are more than N+2 candidates, narrow the field to N+2 using the same procedure as in Stage 1 of Scenario A. Each voter expresses up to three preferences with no ties within these preferences; if M preferences are expressed all others are given rank M+1; then the N+2 candidates with the lowest summed rank (and, within those of the same summed rank, the highest number of first preferences) are chosen to go on to the next stage.

Stage 2:
After further discussion, narrow down to the final N candidates using the same procedure as in Stage 1 for just these N+2 candidates. The N candidates with the lowest summed rank (and, within those of the same summed rank, the highest number of first preferences) are chosen to be the final selection.

In both cases the tie-breaking procedure, if needed, is as set out for Stage 1 of Scenario A.

C. Selection of a slate of fixed size N > 5 individuals (this procedure is usually only needed when a slate of candidates for Council is being selected, in which case N > 9).

Stage 1:
If there are more than L=N+[N/2] candidates, where [.] denotes integer part, narrow the field to L using a similar procedure to that in Stage 1 of Scenario A: each voter, including the chair, expresses up to N-2 preferences, in order, with no ties allowed (with 1=first preference, 2=second preference, etc.); if M preferences are expressed all others are given rank M+1. Total these votes and choose the L candidates with the lowest total rank.

Stage 2:
After a discussion among the committee members about these L candidates, vote on these L candidates using the same method as in Stage 1 to narrow down to the final slate of N candidates, again using first, second, third, …preferences to split any ties. The summed ranks will also give an order of the last L-N candidates to act as reserves.

Tie breaking: In either stage, if there is a tie for the last place or places, separate candidates on the basis of first preferences; or if that doesn’t resolve the tie, count second preferences; then, if necessary third, fourth and fifth preferences. If this does not resolve the tie, there is a runoff vote between the tied candidates. In the runoff, each committee member including the chair has one vote. In the event of a tie in the runoff, the chair has the casting vote.

D. Selection of a slate of individuals of indefinite size (e.g., Fellows)

Let M be the size of the committee and let K be the integer part of (M+1)/2. There are at most five rounds of voting. In each round proceed as follows:

Stage 1:
Each selection committee member, including the chair, votes for, against or abstains on each candidate still under consideration (i.e. who has not been finally rejected or selected; initially this is all the candidates). For each candidate the net score is the number for minus 1/3 times the number against.

In each round of voting, any candidate who achieves a net score of K or more is put on the final slate and is not voted on again. Those with a score less than Z are eliminated from further consideration, where Z= -2 in the first round of voting, 0 in rounds 2, 3 and 4, and K in round 5. Score S with Z ≤ S < K are retained for future consideration and voting, unless the process is terminated by the vote taken as described in Stage 2 below.

Stage 2:
After the third and fourth round of voting, have a single vote on whether to approve the current slate of finally selected candidates or whether to continue voting. [If there is a tie in the single vote, the committee moves to the next round and does not terminate the process.] After the first two rounds voting is reopened automatically provided that there are still candidates who have not been finally selected or rejected. If the voting goes as far as five rounds, after the fifth round of voting all candidates who have not been finally selected are rejected and the resulting slate of selected candidates is automatically approved.

E. Implementing while addressing Conflicts of Interest

In case of one or more cases of conflict of interest (COI), proportional voting should be implemented as follows:

Each committee member who has a COI makes a full ranking with no restriction. The entries where a COI occurs are set to the value of “0”. For each candidate, the resulting ranks are summed up and divided by the number of eligible voters for that candidate: this is the final score.

Example. M is the size of the committee. There is one COI of committee member A with candidate 1. Committee member A makes the full ranking: “1” for candidate 1, “2” for candidate 2, “3”“3”“3”“3”… for all remaining candidates. Due to the COI, the modified ranking looks as: “0” for candidate 1, “2” for candidate 2, “3”“3”“3”“3”… for all remaining candidates. The final score for candidate 1 is the sum of all obtained ranks divided by M-1. All other candidates obtain as final score the sum of all obtained ranks divided by M (because there is no other COI).

Committee Reports

Each committee must submit an annual report to the IMS Council. The report should include details on major accomplishments of the committee throughout the year.

The Committees on Fellows, Special lectures, Select Editors, Select Administrative Officers and Travel Awards must submit a report along with their recommendation for awards, positions or lectures. This report should include broad details on the committee process and details on why the final person(s) were selected. Typically this report is 1-2 paragraphs.

Terms of IMS Committees

An annual cycle for a committee runs from one business meeting to the following business meeting. With the exception of the Committee on Nominations, a committee term is three years.

Committee on the Asia Pacific Rim Meeting

In August 2009, the IMS Council agreed that the following guidelines will be instituted for the IMS-APRM Committee:

• • The Asia and Pacific-Rim Meetings (IMS-APRM) is an ongoing IMS Sponsored Meeting.
  • The meeting will initially occur every two years, but can be adjusted based on demand.
  • The IMS-APRM Program Committee is a standing committee and its members should be appointed by the IMS President in consultation with appropriate societies from the countries represented in the APRM.
  • The IMS Program Secretary sits ex-officio on the committee.
  • The committee is responsible for all decisions regarding the meeting planning and programming, including the location and the local chair.
  • The IMS will maintain an account for the IMS-APRM. The fund will be used for net income and losses for this meeting only as needed. No disbursements will be made out of the fund to the IMS or any other organization.

Committee on the Brown & Zelen Awards

The Committee on the Brown & Zelen Awards selects recipients of the IMS Lawrence D. Brown Ph.D. Student Award and the IMS Thelma and Marvin Zelen Emerging Women Leaders in Data Science Award. The Committee must have at least three members, a statistician, a probabilist and someone with both interests, or a biostatistician or another statistician. The members have rolling terms, each for three years.  The committee may be proportionally increased in size based on the number of applications received each year for the award.

Committee for the Carver Medal

The Harry C. Carver Medal was created by the IMS in honor of H. C. Carver, Founding Editor of the Annals of Mathematical Statistics and one of the founders of the IMS. The medal is for exceptional service specifically to the IMS and is open to any member of the IMS who has not previously been elected President. Not more than one award shall be made each year. The nominating committee for the Carver Medal consists of three former Presidents of the IMS.

Committee on Equality and Diversity

Purpose

The IMS Council aims to:

1. Maintain a culture within the IMS that encourages and promotes diversity and inclusion;
2. Work in partnership with other societies and organizations to maximize the effectiveness of diversity initiatives across the scientific community;
3. Recognise and champion the achievements of a wide range of statisticians and probabilists from underrepresented groups.

The Equality and Diversity Committee (EDC) is an advisory body whose purpose is to assist Council in achieving these aims. It will promote diversity, for example, of gender, ethnicity, age, geographical distribution and scientific disciplines; and the principles of inclusion, equal opportunity, fairness and transparency in IMS policies and procedures.

Membership

1. The EDC shall consist of 6 members including the IMS representatives on the joint committee on women(1) (ex officio), at least one member of Council, and at least one member provided by New Researchers Group.
2. New members shall be appointed by the President after inviting expressions of interest from the membership, and consultation with the EDC.
3. Members shall be appointed for 3 years except in the first two years when staggered appointment times should be made to accommodate future rotation and continuity.
4. A Chair shall be nominated by the EDC and appointed by the President. This appointment shall normally be made for a term of one year and shall not normally exceed two years.

Operations

The EDC shall:

1. Keep under review the IMS Policy Statement on Equity and Diversity, and make recommendations to Council on its implementation;
2. Actively engage with other societies in developing strategies for promoting diversity;
3. Proactively seek out and promote, for example through soliciting nominations for IMS honors and awards, by pieces on the website, or by articles in the IMS Bulletin, examples of achievements of statisticians and probabilists from underrepresented groups;
4. Provide advice to Council on the inclusion of relevant criteria for Committees charged with making awards and honors, such as Special Lectures Committee or the Committee on Fellows, to help them ensure that processes appropriately recognize the principles of diversity and equity;
5. Provide general advice to Council relating to composition and operation of committees in relation to diversity and equity matters;
6. Advise the IMS on maintaining a record of key elements of diversity in Fellows and other Honorands, such as those selected to deliver special lectures, and on committees, including Council itself;
7. Provide advice to Council on other governance and operational aspects of diversity and equity; for example preparation of guidelines for adequate representation of diversity in Society sponsored workshops and conferences;
8. At the request of Council, consider issues concerning diversity, equity, and inclusion that may arise from time to time.

Committee on Fellows

Article IV, Section 2 of the Bylaws provides that, “Each President shall appoint at least three Fellows annually to serve three-year terms on the Committee on Fellows. The President shall designate one of those members whose term is next to expire as chair.”

Article IV, Section 1 provides that, “The Council may, by majority vote, elect to Fellowship any Member nominated by the Committee on Fellows. Such nomination shall be based on the Nominee’s contributions to the development and dissemination of the theory and application of statistics and probability.” Only members of the IMS are eligible to be Fellows of IMS.

The committee should look for those who should have been considered for Fellows and encourage IMS members to nominate them.

The Committee on Fellows should have a diverse membership. As a target, one-third of the membership should be comprised of probabilists, and one-third of statisticians, with the remaining one-third composed in a flexible manner of probabilists and statisticians, allowing for example for members whose interests intersect both areas or who are important for other needs of diversity.

Qualifications for Fellowship

Can be found here.

Procedures

Submission procedures are here.

Each nominee should be assigned for review to two committee members who do not have a direct personal or professional relationship with the nominee. These committee members are responsible for evaluating the professional standing of the nominee, the service of the nominee to the profession, and the service of the nominee to the IMS. The members should base their evaluations on the nomination materials and other publicly available information. The members will report to the full committee that the nominee is “Highly Qualified,” “Qualified,” or “Not Qualified” to be a Fellow and will be prepared to defend this evaluation.

The voting procedure for the Committee on Fellows outlined above should supersede, as necessary, the “Voting Procedure for Committees” outlined earlier in this section.
The chair of the Committee will propose a list of nominees for final action by the full committee, taking into account the Committee ratings, a running average of 10 to 25 new Fellows each year, and the balance of the list by various factors. The Committee may amend the proposed list by adding, deleting, or replacing names on the list before final action on the recommendations to the Council.

The Chair of the Committee on Fellows arranges for discussion and voting. The committee shall not consider whether electing a nominee to Fellowship will impact a hiring, tenure, or promotion case. It shall not be held against a nominee that his/her main work is outside statistics, so long as his/her contribution to statistics satisfies the Qualifications for Fellowship in the IMS Handbook.

The Committee will finalize the citations for each elected Fellow and prepare the final list of Fellows with citations for the IMS Council. The Chair of the Committee reports this final list to the President on or before April 15 to allow sufficient time for Council approval and invitations to be sent to newly elected Fellows well in advance of the Annual Meeting.

The new Fellows are announced at the Presidential Address at the Annual Meeting. The President writes to all the nominators well before the Annual Meeting thanking them for their efforts and informing them of the results.

Committee on Finance

The Committee shall consist of the Past President, serving as chair, the Treasurer, and three members of the elected Council, one from each class. Additional members from outside the Council may be appointed to provide needed expertise. The Committee will be responsible for monitoring the implementation of the investment policy adopted by the Council, monitoring financial procedures, recommending any needed changes in the policy and procedures and in the form of financial reports, and receiving and reviewing audit reports and communicating the results to the Executive Committee and Council.

In June 2010, the IMS Council approved the following Investment Policy:

• • The IMS is committed to a policy of low-cost long-term indexed investing with minimal intervention.
  • IMS investment funds (that is, the funds other than the operating funds or the operating reserve) should be invested as follows:
    1. 70% in domestic and international equities
    2. 30% in fixed-income instruments.
  • The equity investment should be placed in low-cost index funds.
    1. 70% of the equity pool should be invested in an index fund that tracks the overall US stock market, such as the MSCIUS Broad Market Index.
    2. 30% of the equity pool should be invested in an index fund that tracks the overall international stock markets, such the MSCI EAFE + Emerging Markets Index.
  • The fixed income investments should be invested in a low-cost index fund that tracks the overall US bond market, such as the Barclays Capital U.S. Aggregate Float Adjusted Index.
  • The funds should be reviewed annually and should be rebalanced if the actual allocations differ from the targets given here by more than 5%.
  • All dividend and capital gains will be reinvested.

Committee for the Hall Prize

Each year the IMS President shall appoint two members to serve a three-year term on this committee. The IMS President shall also appoint one past recipient of the Hall Prize to serve a one-year term on the Selection Committee. (Thus the Committee will have 7 members at any one time.) The President shall also appoint one member of the Committee (typically a member whose term is next to expire) to serve as Chair. The chair is a non-voting member of the committee, but in cases of ties, the vote of the chair will break the tie. In keeping with the broad nature of the prize, the Committee should have a membership that exhibits diversity across multiple aspects such as gender, geographical regions, and research field. As a target, one-third of the membership should be comprised of probabilists, and one-third of statisticians, with the remaining one-third composed in a flexible manner from probabilists and statisticians, allowing, for example, for members whose interests intersect both areas and for achieving diversity goals. On the other hand, the committee is encouraged to solicit nominations from others in order to ensure a sufficient number of strong nominations.

Selection Criteria:
The main purpose of this prize is to recognize early career research accomplishments and research promise in statistics broadly construed. An early career researcher is one who received their doctoral degree in one of the eight calendar years preceding the year of nomination, or in the year of nomination: for example, any of the years 2012 – 2019 for the 2020 prize. The nomination deadline for nominations is December 1 of the year preceding the award of the prize. For example, for the prize to be awarded in 2020, the deadline for nominations is December 1, 2019. The IMS gives the award committee latitude to consider nominees with extenuating circumstances that may have delayed professional achievements. Nominations may be made by any member of the IMS.

Procedures:
A call for nominations is published in the IMS Bulletin. Members nominating a person for the Peter Hall Prize transmit completed nomination materials including:

1. Nomination form
2. Extended abstract with highlights of research achievements
3. CV
4. Two letters of recommendation (beyond a letter from the nominator). At most two recommendation letters may be submitted by any one individual in a given year.

The Chair of the Committee for the Hall Prize arranges for discussion and voting. The committee shall not consider whether the selection of a particular nominee for the Prize will impact a hiring, tenure, or promotion case.

The Committee will follow the “Voting Procedures:  A. Selection of a single individual” as noted above in the IMS Handbook with the following exceptions unique to the Committee for the Hall Prize:

• before voting in round 1, the committee agrees with a list of questions or criteria to make the review process more formal/structured/fair.
• each committee member ranks their top 5 candidates (instead of 3) in round 1, with ties allowed among the 5.
• the committee will keep the best aggregated 5 candidates in round 2 (instead of 2 currently).

The Committee will finalize a citation for the selected recipient(s) of the Hall Prize. The Chair of the Committee reports the recommended recipient(s) to the President on or before April 15 (to allow sufficient time for Council approval). The recipient(s) of the Prize is (are) announced at the Presidential Address at the Annual Meeting of the IMS. The President writes to all the nominators well before the Annual Meeting thanking them for their efforts and informing them of the results.

Form and Amount:
The Prize will consist of a plaque, a citation, and a cash honorarium. The Hall Prize Fund will operate as an endowed fund with the amount of the prize to be determined by the earnings of the fund. If other funds (such as grant support) are not available, the recipient will also be reimbursed (from IMS general funds) for reasonable travel and hotel expenses to attend the IMS Annual Meeting to receive the prize.

Committee on IMS China

Purpose

The purpose of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS) is to foster the development and dissemination of the theory and applications of statistics and probability.IMS China (IMSC) promotes the participation of Chinese scholars in IMS activities.

Governance

IMSC is a committee of the IMS and will adhere to the By-Laws and Constitution of the IMS, and is subject to the authority of the IMS. It will provide guidance to groups in China that wish to engage in the organization of conferences or publications.IMSC may encourage firms or individuals to contribute to other organizations in China as part of co-operation on conferences or other matters. IMSC will be an intellectual but not a financial participant in these activities, and will not solicit, receive, nor hold funds for itself in China or elsewhere, except as specified in point 6 below.

Unless specifically approved by formal resolution of the IMS Council, IMSC will take no action to establish itself as a separate legal entity under the laws of any jurisdiction.

Membership 

IMSC membership is open to any individual who is 18 years of age or older, resides legally in mainland China, agrees to abide by the By-Laws of the IMS and guidelines of IMSC and pays IMS membership dues on an annual basis. Any resident of another part of China may join IMSC, if he/she wishes, through a regular IMS membership.All IMSC members are individual members of the IMS and receive all rights of an IMS member. Mainland China refers to that part of China where the Renminbi is the only official currency.

Affiliations

IMSC is a part of a non-profit organization and neither IMSC nor the IMS is associated with any political party or religious group in China; however, the activities of IMSC are subject to the relevant and prevailing laws in the People’s Republic of China.Any member of the Chinese Society of Probability and Statistics (CSPS) may opt to pay a joint membership fee to become a member of IMSC. The terms of the joint membership are negotiated between the CSPS and IMSC, subject to the approval of the IMS Council. Joint membership with other professional societies in China may be negotiated under the same principle.

IMSC Executive

Decisions regarding IMSC are made by the IMSC Executive (IMSCE). The IMSCE will consist of the IMSC Officers (Chair, Chair-elect, Past Chair, Treasurer, Program Chair and the IMSC Liaison, the latter appointed by the IMS President) plus fifteen representatives of the IMSC membership.

Election and Nomination

The Chair-elect, Treasurer and Program Chair as well as the 15 representatives will be elected by the IMSC membership. Elections will take place every other year beginning in 2009. Elections will open on May 10 of an election year and close on June 25. All candidates will be notified of the election results by July 10. The terms on the IMSCE of those elected will start on August 15 of the following year, except that the Chair-elect becomes an IMSC Officer and member of the IMSCE effective August 15 of the same year.

The Chair, in consultation with the Past Chair, will appoint a Nominating Committee before February 28 of an election year. The Nominating Committee normally consists of at least 7 members and nominates one candidate for Chair-elect, one candidate for Treasurer and one for Program Chair by April 30 of the election year. The candidate for Chair-elect may not be selected from the current IMSC Officers. No one will be a member of the IMSC Officers consecutively for more than 5 years.

Among the valid votes, the Chair-elect candidate must receive a minimum of 50% to get elected. The candidate for Treasurer and the candidate for the Program Chair must receive a minimum of 25% of the valid votes to get elected. If a candidate does not receive the minimum required number of votes, a new candidate must be nominated by the Nominating Committee for a separate vote. The process repeats until all of the elected IMSCE Officers are determined. The Chair-elect will serve one year then move to the Chair position for two years and then to Past Chair for two years. The Treasurer and the Program Secretary will each serve two year terms.

The Nominating Committee should also nominate no fewer than 20 candidates for the 15 positions of representative on the IMSCE. At least half of the candidates should not be current representatives on the IMSCE. The fifteen candidates who receive the largest number of votes are elected to the IMSCE for a two year term. In case of ties in the number of votes, a random tie breaking procedure will be followed. All nominees for the positions of representative on the IMSCE must be IMSC members at the time of election.

Duties

The IMSCE is charged with protecting and promoting IMSC and with carrying out IMSC policies. The IMSCE makes decisions on major initiatives and major activities of IMSC. The Treasurer oversees the receipt and disbursement of all funds of IMSC, subject to the provisions of section 6. The Program Chair arranges and coordinates all activities concerned with meetings of IMSC. IMSC is the designated local organizer for IMS regional meetings in China. The Program Chair will work with the IMS and local professional societies in China to coordinate conferences and workshops that are of interest to IMS members.

Publications

IMSC may cooperate with institutions or individuals to develop publications (monographs, textbooks, proceedings, or journals) in Chinese or English. Such publications, while they might be produced and distributed primarily in China, should also be available worldwide and conform to the legal and technical standards expected of IMS publications. In particular, copyright policies will be the same as those of the IMS. The constraints imposed in section 6 below imply that IMSC will not play a financial role in these activities. Neither will IMSC issue contracts to authors or publishers, or be the beneficial owner of intellectual property rights (such as copyrights), or receive indirect compensation for these developmental efforts.

Finance

IMSC will collect individual IMS membership dues in China, will convert all such funds received to USD, and will remit those funds to the IMS in payment for IMS memberships for the paying persons in China. The collecting agent for IMS dues will not hold the IMS dues for more time than is required for the funds to be economically remitted. Typically this would be less than three months. The above transactions will be made within the conventional banking system, using a conventional bank account, and full documentation of all transactions will be provided to the IMS. A report on compliance with these principles will be provided annually by the IMSCE. This report will be incorporated into the IMS Treasurer’s report and will be published with the Treasurer’s report in the IMS Bulletin. The IMS Treasurer will be responsible for reporting on compliance with this process and will be given copies of all bank statements relating to the previously mentioned account.Members who pay their dues through IMSC will be recorded as IMS members as soon as IMSC receives their membership dues. IMSC will update the list of members with the IMS Business Office on a regular basis.IMSC will not collect “IMSC dues” in excess of those remitted to the IMS. IMSC will not hold any funds in China or elsewhere except for the one account mentioned earlier.

Changes to Guidelines and Dissolution

Changes to these guidelines must be approved by the IMS Council. The IMS may decide to dissolve IMS China with 30 days written notice to the IMSCE.

Resolution of Disputes Within IMSCE and/or IMSC

In the event of any dispute arising between or among the IMSCE, IMSC, or any member or officer of the IMSCE or IMSC concerning the operation or governance of IMSC (including any dispute concerning the election of officers or representatives as described in Item 5, above), the dispute will be resolved by the IMS Council, and the determination of the IMS Council will be binding upon the disputants.

Committee on Memorials

The Committee on Memorials sees that proper steps are taken to memorialize distinguished probabilists and statisticians who have died. Ways to honor such researchers are obituaries in the Bulletin, extended memorial articles in IMS scientific journals, memorial issues of IMS journals and memorial sessions at IMS meetings. For more information on the role of the committee, see here.

• Obituaries in the Bulletin should appear shortly after the death of a distinguished probabilist or statistician. The decision is made by the Editor of the Bulletin.
• For researchers whose work had a particularly high scientific impact, the IMS journals can publish extended memorial articles in a timely manner after the death of that person. The decision is made by the committee on memorials in agreement with the editor of the journal in which the memorial is going to appear.
• For such outstanding researchers, IMS conferences or IMS cosponsored conferences can also hold a memorial session. This is decided by the Memorials committee and the IMS program chair of the meeting.
• In very exceptional cases the IMS journals can publish whole issues on the occasion of special anniversaries, such as the 100th birthday, of a person. This is restricted to researchers who had a great and lasting impact on our fields. Such an issue has to give an overall view on the development and the perspectives connected with the work of person, and it has to be approved by Council.

The Committee on Memorials sees that proper steps are taken in the creation of named Special Lectures, Awards & Prizes. This process is outlined here.

Committee on New Researchers

The New Researchers Committee’s responsibility is to assist the IMS in understanding and meeting the needs of new researchers, especially concerning publications and meetings. The Committee will also be in charge of organizing and running the New Researchers Conference, under the supervision of the IMS Program Secretary. The members of the committee will serve for three years. One of those members shall be designated as chair by the IMS President, in consultation with the New Researchers Committee and IMS Program Secretary. If needed, a Local Arrangements Chair for the New Researchers Conference will also be selected by the same process.

Committee on Nominations

The By-Laws, Article III, Section 1.1 state that:
The President, in consultation with the President-Elect and the Past President, shall appoint a Nominating Committee before the annual Meeting when he or she retires as President and shall announce their names at the Annual Meeting. This Committee shall submit to the Members, through the Executive Secretary, at least four months before the next succeeding Business Meeting at least one nomination for President-Elect, and a slate containing at least twice as many names as the number of anticipated vacancies on the Council.

Outreach Committee

The Outreach Committee shall develop outreach strategies and activities to raise the visibility and the standing of the IMS, support IMS members, and reach out to potential new members to expand the IMS membership. The strategies and activities shall be broad and adaptive, including modern channels for disseminating research progress, an effective support system for members, innovative educational and research initiatives, active promotion of statistical reasoning among the general public, and collegial networks for linking researchers within and outside the academia. Special effort shall be made to reach out to junior researchers and underrepresented communities, broadly defined.

The committee shall consist of five members with 3-year staggered terms appointed by the President. In addition, the following shall sit on the committee ex-officio: the Chair of the New Researchers Group,
the Chair of the Committee on Equality and Diversity, and the IMS Program Secretary. The committee may wish to include the IMS Executive Director and the IMS Bulletin Editor in a non-voting advisory role. The chair of the committee shall also be appointed by the President for one year, but may serve for
longer.

Committee on Professional Conduct

See here for full committee guidelines.

Committee on Publications

The Publications Committee is responsible for determining general policy for all publications of the Institute. The Editors of the official journals are ex-officio members.

Committee to Select Administrative Officers

The Committee to Select Administrative Officers submits nominations for Executive Secretary, Treasurer, Program Secretary, and Managing Editors when vacancies occur.

Committee to Select Editors

The Committee to Select Editors submits nominations for Editor of each publication as vacancies occur. The President is charged with appointing two additional ad hoc members to the Committee for each selection decision that must be made.

Committee on Special Lectures

The Committee on Special Lectures is charged with selecting distinguished scientists to deliver the Special Named Lectures and the Medallion Lectures to be given at regular meetings. The names of the selected lecturers are usually announced at the IMS Annual Meeting at least one year in advance.

The committee shall have nine voting members with rotating terms. The Annals and Statistical Science Editors are ex-officio members of the Committee on Special Lectures since special papers are sometimes published in one of these journals. The Program Secretary serves as an ex officio member of the Committee on Special Lectures. The ex officio members are non-voting members of the committee.

At the name-gathering stage, the Committee to Select Special Lectures compiles at least two separate non-empty lists for each type of special lectureship, including one for men and one for women. It is expected that the committee considers and discusses the candidates on both lists seriously, but there is no quota for the voting. The committee is asked to pay attention also to other groups which had not been well represented in the past, and include members of them in the respective lists, if possible.

The Council must first approve the list of Medallion and Named Lectures.  Once approved, the President or Program Secretary will contact each lecturer congratulating them and confirming their ability to participate.

Medallion Awards and Lectures
Each year, the committee invites eight individuals to deliver the Medallion Lectures and receive the accompanying award. No one who has given a Medallion Lecture (or a Special Invited Paper) is eligible to be chosen as a Medallion Lecturer, although they may be chosen as a Named Lecturer.

The Committee on Special Lectures will include in its selections of Medallion Lecturers, at least two people in probability; at least two people in statistics; and additionally at least one person in an interdisciplinary area. If this requirement conflicts with the available Medallion Sessions, the composition of the Medallion slate will be set by the Chair of the Committee and the Program Secretary. Normally, at least half of the Medallion Lectures should be awarded to early- to mid-career researchers. (Early- to mid-career is defined to be under age 46 or not more than 15 years past the last statistics-related degree in the award calendar year with allowances for career breaks such as maternity or paternity leave.)

Because more statisticians than probabilists are usually on the committee and each group tends to vote for people with whom they are familiar, probabilists may be less likely to be chosen. To overcome this problem, some committee chairs have devised voting schemes in which the number of Medallion Lectures in probability is fixed in advance, and then separate votes are taken in probability and statistics.

The chair of the Special Lectures Committee should be provided with a list of the past Medallion Lecturers (or deliverers of Special Invited Papers).

Named Awards and Lectures
All IMS Named Awards and Lectures are selected by the Committee on Special Lectures and are usually given at the Annual Meeting, with the exception of the Grace Wahba Award and Lecture which is an annual lecture at the JSM. The Wald Memorial Lectures are given each year at the IMS Annual Meeting. In years where the Annual Meeting is at the JSM or the World Congress, there may be up to two additional Named Lectures, and in other years there may be up to three additional Named Lectures. The Neyman, Rietz, Blackwell, and Le Cam lectures are each given every 3 years where the pattern of the Neyman and Rietz in 2022, Blackwell in 2023, and Le Cam in 2024 is repeated on a 3-year cycle. In case of scheduling problems named lectures may be given as stand-alone events at an appropriate venue.

Details for each lecture can be found here.

Committee on Travel Awards

The Committee on Travel Awards selects recipients of the Tweedie New Researcher Award,  the IMS New Researcher Travel Award and the IMS ​Hannan Graduate Student Travel Award. The Committee will have six members, with at least one statistician, at least one probabilist, and at least one person with interdisciplinary interests. The six members will have rolling terms, each for three years.

Editor, IMS Scientific Legacy

An IMS Scientific Legacy section of the website imstat.org will be developed, and the position of Editor for IMS Scientific Legacy will be created to develop, and oversee the operation of, the scientific legacy pages. The Editor for IMS Scientific Legacy will have appropriate web skills, will be an ex officio member of the IMS Committee on Memorials, will be approved by Council after recommendation by the Executive and the Committee on Memorials, and will be appointed for a term of three years.