the role of statisticians in csiro: past, present and future

Austral. J. Statist., 30(1), 1988, 15-34

THE ROLE O F STATISTICIANS IN CSIRO: PAST, P R E S E N T A N D F U T U R E 1

T.P. SPEED

@SIR0 Division of Mathematics and Statistics

1. Introduct ion

It is both an honour and a pleasure to be able to speak tonight: an honour to join the distinguished list of Knibbs lecturers and a pleasure to be invited to speak on this topic, one which is, as I am sure you will all appreciate, very near to my heart. I only hope that the topic will be of interest to statisticians not directly associated with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).

It seems to me that any discussion of the role of statisticians in an organisation such as the CSIRO must be based upon an understanding of the function of the Organisation as a whole. For it is only following an appreciation of this function that the Executive of the Organisation and the Section Head or Chief of the statisticians decide upon the role statisticians will play. This apparently harmless observation already implies that the role of statisticians will be partly determined by political and organisational policies, as well as by the more obvious.ones such as what seems to be needed and what is possible scientifically.

In what follows I will be presenting a good number of ringing phrases describing just what a group of statisticians could and should do to help achieve the Organisation’s aims, and it seems desirable to ask from time to time whether what actually took place coincided with the sentiments expressed in those fine phrases. In other words, I will not only be describing what at various times it was felt the role of statisticians should be, I will also try to make some comments on the rather more difficult topic of what this role actually turned out to be.

I have chosen to organise my material chronologically and hope that this will not hide the fact that there are a significant number of recurrent themes. I could probably argue that almost all the key issues relating to the

Knibbs Lecture to Statistical Society of Australia, 1986.

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desired and actual role of statisticians in the CSIRO emerged shortly after the appointment of the very first statistician in 1930, but it is certainly not without interest to observe the way in which these issues reappear over the following fifty years, and to outline the different emphases which were given to them, as well as describing the genuinely new developments.

In closing this introduction let me emphasise that whilst I have no wish to undervalue the role of the non-statistical mathematical scientists in the CSIRO, the computational and applied mathematicians, the operations researchers and so on who have worked both within and outside the Division, I omit any mention of them in this talk. I restrict my comments to statisticians not only because this is a talk to a Statistical Society, but also because any broadening of its scope would make the whole task much more difficult. These remarks also apply to the restriction, which will become apparent when I get under way, to staff of the Division of Mathematics and Statistics (DMS) and its predecessors. While there have undoubtedly been statisticians of note located in other Divisions I have felt justified in not discussing to them for two reasons. One is that they have rarely identified as statisticians, but more commonly as scientists in another field, although Hugh Fairfield Smith is a notable exception, and the second is that their role is certainly not mainstream. In a way they are a reminder of a model that could have been but was not accepted as the norm: individual statisticians located in the various Divisions of the CSIRO without any formal connections with one another. In due course I will be making some further comments about this model.

2. G.H. Knibbs and the Commonwealth Institute of Science and Industry

There is an interesting connection between the man after whom these annual lectures are named and the theme of this talk which, while hardly central to its development, seems worth pointing out. George Handley Knibbs (1858-1929) was appointed the first Commonwealth Statistician in 1906 after a career which included periods as a surveyor, lecturer in geodesy, astronomy and hydraulics, public servant, acting professor of physics at the University of Sydney, and NS W superintendent of technical education.

As Commonwealth Statistician he enjoyed a high international reputation which is undoubtedly the reason why these lectures are named after him, but it is perhaps less common knowledge that he was quite well known in his time as a man of science. The list of scientific bodies of which he

THE ROLE OF STATISTICIANS IN CSIRO 17

was a member, a senior office bearer or by which he was honoured, is quite impressive.

The origins of the CSIRO go back to Federation in 1901 and after a lengthy gestation period which is chronicled in Currie and Graham (1966), the Institute of Science and Industry came into existence in 1920. In March of the following year Knibbs was appointed its Director: a statistician at the head of the CSIRO Mark l! Unfortunately for Knibbs, Science, Industry and Australia, this first organisation was never adequately funded by the government and failed to develop as had been hoped. Nevertheless, one might wonder whether the Director saw any special role for statisticians in the Institute he hoped to develop. There seems to be no evidence for this, which is perhaps not surprising as the effective application of statistics to agriculture, horticulture, forestry, mining and the manufacturing industry - the areas in which Knibbs hoped to encourage research - was either an extremely recent development, or something which lay in the future. On one occasion during this period the state premiers met to discuss, amongst other things, cooperation with the Institute. Referring to the Institute's existing staff the Premier of Tasmania said:

"It would be no use to give the work to a statistician who would merely put facts and figures together. I do not know what may be the intentions but it occurs to me that if beneficial results are to follow from the proposal, there must be a full staff of technical experts . . ."

(Currie and Graham 1966, p. 119) He was ultimately assured by the Prime Minister Stanley Melbourne

Bruce that "we do not propose that any scientific problem shall be handled by clerks!".

Following initiatives from Bruce a Bill to amend the Institute of Sci- ence and Industry Act was proposed. This duly went through and a new Act established the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), whose first meeting took place in 1926. Albert Cherbury David Rivett, previously a professor of chemistry was the Council's first full-time Chief Executive Officer, George Julius, an engineer, its Chairman, and William Newbigin, also an engineer, was the third member of the Executive Com- mittee. A year later Professor A.E.V. Richardson, Director of the Waite Institute of Agricultural Research joined the Executive in place of Newbi- gin. Like its predecessor under Knibbs the main brief of the CSIR was

"the initiation and carrying out of scientific researches in connection with, or for the promotion of, primary or secondary industries

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in the Commonwealth.”

Other functions of the CSIR included the training of research work- ers and the establishment and awarding of industrial research studentships and fellowships, the making of grants for pure scientific research, the recognition or establishment of industrial research associations, the testing and standardization of scientific instruments, and the collection and dissemina- tion of scientific and technical information. Rivett (1972) gives some of the early history of the Council in his biography of his father, David Rivett.

3. Biometries in the CSIR

In 1928 the Director of Rothamsted Experimental Station, Sir John Russell, visited Australia. Russell is well known as the man who in 1919 invited R.A. Fisher to Rothamsted and suggested that

after studying our records he should tell me whether they were suitable for proper statistical examination and might be expected to yield more information than we had extracted”.

Russell, quoted in Box (1978, p.96)

Given what we all know Fisher did between 1920 and 1928, it is hardly surprising to find that Rivett wrote “Russell found it fairly easy to arouse our enthusiasm in the type of work which is being done at Rothamsted by Fisher.’’ The Executive Committee decided to offer a studentship in “the study of statistical methods applied to agriculture” and the first one was awarded to Frances Elizabeth (Betty) Allan (1905-1952), an M.A. graduate in mathematics from the University of Melbourne. Whilst on the studentship she studied mathematics and statistics (under G.U. Yule), applied biology and general agriculture at Cambridge, and after visiting some agricultural research establishments in Europe, spent one year at Rothamsted, see Field (1986) for further details.

On her return to Australia Betty Allan took up a post with the CSIR working with the Division of Plant Industry in Canberra. This was in 1930 and at that time there ‘were five other divisions : Animal Health, with groups in Sydney and Melbourne, Eonomic Entomology located together with Plant Industry in Canberra, Animal Nutrition and Soil Re- search in Adelaide and Forest Products in Melbourne. Furthermore, there were research stations at Griffith and Merbein, a group devoted to the scientific study of food preservation and one committed to mineragraphic investigations. Miss Alan’s initial program was to be


a. Statistical studies concerning the breeding of the principal crops of Australia with special reference in the first place to wheat

b. Collection and collation of information on climatic conditions a t various stages of growth and their influence, etc

c. Analysis of data from uniformity trials and field experiments. Journal of the CSIR 3 (4) Nov. 1930

It was not long before her work broadened considerably beyond this program. Not surprisingly she became involved in statistical aspects of entomological research, for example with the Blowfly Section, beginning a form of collaboration which continues to this day, and in the 2-3 years following her appointment she visited the Division of Forest Products in Melbourne, the Waite Institute and the Division of Animal Nutrition in Adelaide and the research station a t Merbein, spending time with sections or individuals on their specific problems.

The value of biometric work was quickly appreciated by the Council and its scientists and the demands on Miss Allen’s time increased greatly. As early as October 1933 it was apparent to Rivett that she was “not being given sufficient opportunity to do the best type of research work of which she is capable”. He felt that the time had been reached when she could be put onto something “likely to lead rather more readily to publication of value”. Her supervisor, Chief of the Division of Plant Industry, replied “I take it there is no urgency because the work Miss Allen is doing is so valuable that were she to do little else it would be quite justified in the long run”. It took just three years from the appointment of the first biometrician to the CSIR for this central issue to surface, that is, the balance between consulting and research.

By 1939 there were three biometricians working with the CSIR : Betty Allan, Helen Newton Turner and Mildred M. Barnard. Helen Newton Turner graduated in architecture from the University of Sydney, doing well in mathematics and engineering subjets, but owing to the Depression, had been unable to find employment in an architect’s office. She joined the CSIR as secretary to I. Clunies-Ross, then Officer-in-Charge of the Division of Animal Health in Sydney. In the years which followed she took all suitable mathematics, statistics and probability courses available at the University of Sydney, as well as showing a special interest in the statistic4 side of the scientific work of the division in which she worked. In due course her status was changed to that of secretary-statisticia and then, with the support of Betty Allan, to biometrician, following which she tackled the statistical work of her division in Sydney. Later (1938-39)

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she spent a year at the Galton Laboratory in University College of London and at Rothamsted, consolidating her biometrical knowledge.

Mildred Barnard's school and university background was very similar to Betty Allan's, and she went to study for her PhD at University College with some small financial support from the CSIR. At that time Fisher was Galton Professor of Eugenics and E.S. Pearson was Professor of Statistics in the College. On her return to Australia Miss Barnard was appointed to do biometric work in the Division of Forest Products, although, as she has pointed out, it was more general applied statistics than biometrics, a typical problem being the calculation of the bending moments of timber.

In reporting on biometrical work in the CSIR in 1937 Betty Allan de- tailed assistance being given on a very wide range of problems within the Council, lectures on statistics given to scientists in the Canberra divisions, the training of biometricians from the Queensland Department of Agri- culture, advice given to the Commonwealth Forestry School, and she also noted some of the difficulties encountered by the three biometricians. She suggested that all the bigger centres should have a specially trained biometrician who could become thoroughly familiar with the problems in that place, and argued against a highly centralised Biometric Section. Never- theless she thought it desirable that each biometrician "should have some knowledge of all the Council's problems, so that in an emergency biometrical officers could be moved about to meet the special needs in particular places." On the qualities desirable in someone Wing the role of a statistician in the CSIR Betty Allan wrote "What is required is someone who has the necessary qualifications, and is yet prepared to devote his energies to helping other officers rather than establishing an independent scientific reputation for himself".

4. The Biometrics Section under E.A. Cornish

In 1940 Betty Allan resigned from the CSIR following her marriage in the previous year, and Edmund Alfred Cornish (1909-1973) was appointed Senior Biometrical Officer on the staff of the Council. Cornish had graduated from the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Melbourne and subsequently been appointed agrostologist at the Waite Institute. There he was confronted with many statistical problems, one of particular interest to him being the relationship between meteorological variables and agricultural yields, and at the same time he pursued his studies in mathematics. In 1937 he took leave of absence at his own expense to study with Fisher at University College London, one outcome of this being their


famous joint paper giving approximations to certain aspects of general probability distributions in terms of cumulants. Moran (1974) gives more details on Cornish’s life and work.

Cornish took a rather more active role in leading the Biometrics Sec- tion than had Betty Allen, moving quickly to inlude all who devoted their time exclusively to such work in the Section. Thus he took charge of G.A. McIntyre, E.J. Williams and Helen Newton Turner, the three other scientific staff, and of four support staff. He saw the functions of his section as being:

1. To cooperate with, and render assistance to, officers of the Council by a. providing an advisory service on experimental design and the reduc-

b. assisting experimenters in the interpretation of their findings and in

c. providing assistance in computation.

tion and analysis of experimental data,

drawing valid conclusions from their data.

2. To conduct research in statistical theory and its applications to practical problems.

By this time the CSIR had grown very much larger than it had been ten years previously. Divisions of Food Preservation and Transport and of Fisheries had been set up, and promised to rely heavily on biometric advice, as did a new Division of Industrial Chemistry. There were also new Divisions of Aeronautics and Radiophysics and a number of sections comprising the National Standards Laboratory. The just-mentioned divisions and staff from many others were now actively associated with the war effort, and i t was inevitable that the Council’s biometricians would also become involved in such work.

In introducing the first War Report of the Biometrics Section, Cornish drew attention t o another important issue. He wrote:

Owing to the nature of the functions of the Biometrics Section as a unit of the Council’s research team, any contribution to the war effort made by the Section is largely dependent upon the policy adopted and the work undertaken by the various divisions. This greatly limits opportunities for direct and independent contributions .n

Despite this problem members of the section had little difficulty in assisting the war effort in a wide variety of ways ranging from the analysis of data from timber tests examining the suitability of Australian timber for use in the construction of aircraft, through advising upon the distribution

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of sizes of gas masks being planned for civil defence, to more directly probabilistic studies of the chances of hitting an aerial target by anti- aircraft fire.

Perhaps because of the war, which had resulted in even greater demands on the time of the biometricians than had been the case in peace- time, it had not proved possible for members of the section to conduct any appreciable amount of research in statistics. Some research on applications had been found necessary in order to analyse data not amenable to standard methods.

Following a meeting in late 1943 with the Standards Association of Australia concerning quality control, Cornish put to the Executive Com- mittee a bold plan for broadening the role of the Section and considerably increasing the size. After reiterating the two functions spelt out above, and noting that “the ordinal position given has always been taken to im- ply more than mere enumeration of the functions,” he listed the many and varied bodies outside the CSIR which had sought statistical assistance from his Section. He then surveyed the availability of such advice around Australia, the wide range of possible fields of application of statistics in the country, the ways in which these applications were catered for in the UK and the USA, and concluded with the following plan:

1. Extension of the scope of the Section’s functions in order to enable it to A. provide the same facilities as are available to the Council’s divisions

a. other Governmental departments, e.g., Department of Health, Commonwealth Meterological Bureau, Department of Labour and National Service, etc, and organisations such as the Standards Association;

and sections for

b. endowed institutions, industrial firms, and private individuals B. conduct research on the application of mathematical statistics in sec-

C. conduct fundamental research ondary industry

2. Increase of the sectional staff in order to carry out the functions listed under 1.

At the same time Cornish observed that it was quite likely that the Council would have to provide the necessary advanced training in statistics.

This plan to extend the work of the section gained the general support of the Council, which left further consideration to the Executive Commit-


tee. Shortly afterwards the Section's name was changed from Biometrics to Mathematical Statistics "in view of the fact that [their] work has been extended to other fields than biological science and to secondary industry".

Two major developments were to take place in 1944 : a close and lasting association with the University of Adelaide began when Cornish moved there from the University of Melbourne, and a start was made on the planned build-up of the section. Part of the arrangement with the University was that Cornish would provide courses in statistical theory (for mathematical majors), statistical methods (for biological science as well as mathematics students), and statistical methods for engineers. In addition there wits provision for an advisory service on statistics to the research staff of the University, of which the staff Jat the Waite Institute constituted the major proportion.

Further appointments to the section were made in the years which followed, with McIntyre in Canberra being given responsibility for statistical research in CSIR laboratories, i.e. for the expanded part of the Section as it had existed in 1944, and Cornish himself heading the fundamental research group located in Adelaide. It was planned that the industrial statistics research group would be based in Melbourne, working in cooperation with the Standards Association of Australia on problems such as the sampling of both single items and bulk materials, and statistical quality control.

5. A Division of Mathematical Statistics in CSIRO

Following a rather difficult time politically for the CSIR in the late 1940s, the 1926 Act under which it was set up was redrafted and a new one, the Science and Industry Research Act 1949, was proclaimed, see White (1975) for an insider's view of these events, and Rivett (1972) for another perspective. The new name: Commonwealth Scientific and In- dustrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), had a set of initials reasonably similar to CSIR, and although there were a number of significant adminis- trative differences between the new and the old organisations, there does not seem to have been any intention to change markedly the functions or role of the organisation, apart from removing from it any secret research of defense interest. Furthermore, there seems to be no indication that these events prompted any review or change of the role of the growing section of Mathematical Statistics.

By 1954 the Section consisted of some 20 scientists and 21 technical staff, thereby achieving for Cornish an aim he set down ten years earlier when he wrote to Rivett that "the Section could be developed into an

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extremely useful organisation employing 15-20 offiers in research for which I can now forsee the need”. In March of that year the Executive decided to create a Division of Mathematical Statistics with Cornish as its Chief, something which surprised and gratified him.

How close was the Division’s actual role in the 1950s and 1960s to that outlined by Cornish in his 1943 plan? By 1970 the DMS had 53 scientific staff out of a total of 88 and was represented in 16 locations around Aus- tralia, their disposition varying from 14 in Adelaide, the Divisional Head- quarters, down to single individuals in the Meat Research Laboratories, Cannon Hill, Queensland, and at the University of Melbourne. Approxi- mately one third of the total staff were devoted to research and the rest to service.

There seems to be little doubt that the vast majority of the service and applied research work done by DMS was for CSIRO. Such work covered a wide range of Divisions as well as locations and it was greatly appreciated by the Organisation. No sustained efforts appear to have been made “to provide the same facilities as are available to the Council’s divisions and sections“ for other government or quasi government bodies, business, industry or private individuals, on any similar scale, and in particular the planned industrial statistics research group to be based in Melbourne never got off the ground. Non-CSIRO work seems to have been restricted to responding to the occasional request, where this was possible, and to assisting the Standards Association of Australia as required.

Within CSIRO, the Division’s consulting, collaboration and applied research work was heavily concentrated in those Divisions assisting Aus- tralia’s agricultural, horticultural, forestry and pastoral industries, and the related food and dairy industries, a bias reflecting an emphasis within the Organisation as a whole. There were a number of other Divisions, however, with which DMS scientists had little or no contact, especially those associated with the mineral and (non-food) manufacturing industries, although the National Measurement Laboratory received good service and stimulated some fine research during this period.

6. Mathematial Statistics becomes Mathematics and Statistics

Around 1970 the CSIRO Executive began to give thought to the future of DMS following Cornish’s planned retirement in 1974, particularly in view of his stated wish to make further research contributions before this time. In his contribution to the discussion of the future of the Divi- sion Cornish reiterated his view that the service role in statistics must be


complemented by a research role because, in my experience, a service using existing methods of

statistical analysis, would only supply appropriate methods in approximately 70% of cases. The remainder require statistical research in some degree, ranging from relatively minor to full scale investigations.” He went on to outline the anticipated effects of reducing the Division’s

role t o supplying only a service, and similarly to the policy of disbanding the Division and distributing staff members among other Divisions to provide only a service. The consequences of the latter would, in his view, be similar to those of the former “except, perhaps, that the rate of loss of [the best] st& would be greater.”

It is perhaps not surprising to note that the body of DMS staff had the same view as their Chief on this issue. The future of the Division was discussed at Divisional meetings in 1969 and 1971 and in a summary document dated 1972 their answer to the question “What are the appropriate roles for statisticians within CSIRO?” was

”. . . statisticians within the Division should not operate purely as consultants to research staff of other Divisions, but in addition be allowed sufficient time to undertake statistical research in their own right . . . Because of the two-fold work role of the Di- vision, functions of different individuals within the Division vary, with some being entirely research statisticians, others performing a dual role of consultant and researcher, and yet others being entirely consultants.” This document also recognised that most of the activity of the Division

was associated with research in biological and agricultural divisions, rather than with the mineral or environmental divisions which were a t that time being highlighted by the CSIRO. It was seen as incumbent upon the next Chief “to create opportunities for new positions within those Divisions with which statisticians have had little or no contact. “... Clearly we cannot reduce the number of people we have located in client Divisions.”

By late 1972 the Executive concluded that the Organisation’s requirements in mathematical statistics could be met by

1. a strong, competent, research group with programmes relevant to CSIRO.

2. a service group dispersed throughout the Organisation with arrange- ments being negotiated to suit each individual division served. The

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staff of this group would be required to take a high initiative in press- ing the role of statistics in research.

3. closer association with the Division of Computing Research in both the research and service function.

Further, the Executive felt that an advertisement for Cornish's suc- cessor should be prepared and issued.

A rather complex sequence of events, beginning with the death of Cornish in January 1973, followed this decision, leading to the Executive seeking advice from Professor J.M. Gani on a number of issues, and subsequently appointing him the second Chief of DMS.

At the time Gani was a Professor at the University of Sheffield and Director of the Manchester-Sheffield School of Probability and Statistics. He was well known internationally for his research in applied probability and for being Editor-in-Chief of two journals in this field, and had experience as a consultant in operations research and epidemiology. His PhD was from the ANU and he had taught at the University of Melbourne and of Western Australia, and in the USA as well as at Sheffield.

Gani's report on the Division contained a number of far reaching recommendations, perhaps the most striking being that the Executive "should consider seriously the formation of a Division of Mathematics and Statis- tics" that would include the existing DMS, but provide a much wider range of mathematical research and consulting services. He also felt that considerable expansion of the Division was necessary and in this and many other respects, he gained the Executive's support.

Did Gani envisage a change of the role of statisticians? In his report on the research of the Division he commented that

The DMS has confined itself with few exceptions, to research in areas of classical statistics, most of them based upon the work of Sir Ronald Fisher; these have too often been dictated by consulting and service needs. Work has only occasionally been selected for its fundamental interest or its relevance to Australian conditions. More often the efforts of the Division have been subservient to customer demand, and have not been ordered on the basis of well-defined scientific priorities." Commenting on the consulting and service work of the Division, Gani

notes that ite scientists were in great demand by other Divisions of CSIRO. However he thought that there had been "excessive emphasis in the DMS on the eervice aspects of its work", and that in a reorganisation of the Di- vision "the emphasis on its research functions should be greatly stressed"


without substantially changing the overall balance within the Division between time spent on research and time spent on consulting. He added that some attempt should be made to put a priority rating on the projects presented to DMS consultants.

Gani felt that the Division needed to place greater emphasis on the areas of industrial, environmental and social statistics, and to devote "a far greater part of its research resources" to modern statistical theory, and he saw a considerable demand for consulting and research in a large number of areas of statistics not at the time covered by the Division. In addition he argued that the DMS should consult with the general public, public companies, and other government departments. It was his view that staff of the Division should identify statistical problems of relevance to Australian development and solve them on their own initiative.

In relation to Universities Gani saw a significant role for the Divi- sion in helping train students, including postgraduates, in applied areas of mathematics and statistics, and he believed that the Division "could take a leading role in helping the Universities to formulate a planned policy for mathematics and statistics in Australia."

Did Gani bring about the significant changes in the role of statisticians in DMS that he had foreshadowed? There were certainly many appointments from areas of probability and statistics not previously represented within the Divisions; fruitful contacts were made with a number of the Divisions with which DMS traditionally had little or no contact; and there was a greatly increased emphasis on applied probability (and mathematical) modelling, as distinct from traditional biometric consulting and applied research. Thus a broadening of the traditional role took place.

There seems to be little doubt that the Division's work was less "subservient to customer demand", and less "dictated [to] by consulting and service needs" than it had been previously, and to this extent we must conclude that a change of role did take place. However it seems to me that this changed role was mainly due to the influx of new staff, most of whom had theoretical, but not biometric or applied statistical backgrounds; the existing researchers and consultants continued operating in much the same way aa they had in the past. Whether this was a deliberate appointment policy was not clear. It may simply have been a consequence of the fact that then, as in Cornish's time, and even now, few honours graduates and even fewer PhD graduates in statistics have the appropriate education and training for work in DMS.

Under Gani the size of the Division grew quickly, although many of

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the new appointments were in mathematics rather than statistics, and its place on the national and international stage became much more promi- nent. A vigorous visitors program saw many well known mathematicians and statisticians come to Australia under the auspices of the Division. This program necessitated closer contact between DMS and university statisticians and in some cases led to significant collaboration in teaching and research. As a university teacher at that time, I can testify to the value of this interaction, although "the planned policy for mathematics and statistics in Australia" never became a reality.

Consulting and research work with non CSIRO bodies such as other government departments, business and industry continued initially as it had previously, with any income derived in this way going into general revenue. A desire to extend these activities and to have the Division reap the full benefits for doing so led to the idea of forming a private mathematical and statistical consulting company part-owned by CSIRO as the primary vehicle for external DMS work. Staff cuts a t the time were also a contributing factor. The formation of the consulting firm SIROMATH Pty Ltd was a significant development in the history of the Division and did lead to a greatly increased level of consulting work - and occasionally research - being done by statisticians within DMS for clients outside CSIRO. The first General Manager of SIROMATH, Dr Richard Cowan, was a DMS staff member seconded to get the company going, and initially a significant fraction of the statistical work coming in to the company was handled by DMS staff. In due course the company took on its own staff and under its second General Manager and later Managing Director, Dr Richard Tweedie, began to operate independently of DMS, only turning to the Division for specialist skills or when the demand for its consulting services exceeded its capacity.

As indicated above, the major changes which followed the appointment of Gani as Chief of Division related to the great broadening of the Division's range of activities beyond statistical consulting, collaboration and research. The Division was reviewed in 1981 and whilst applauding many of the developments of DMS since 1973, these broad objectives were seen by the Committee as unrealistic. Further, there was criticism of the extent to which the Division's research was unlinked with its consulting and collaborative work.

The Executive endorsed the following Review recommendations on these matters:

The objectives of DMS shall be to foster the application of statis-


tics and other appropriate mathematics to research in CSIRO and to conduct research on relevant theory. In pursuing these objectives, the staff of the Division will collaborate in research projects with other Divisions, pursue appropriate statistical and mathematical research; and provide consulting services.

[Furthermore] there should be greater coherencce in the dis- ciplinary research, which should be more firmly connected with consultation and collaboration.

7. A Current Perspective It is quite apparent by now that views on the role of statisticians in

CSIRO are largely determined by views on a number of key issues such as

- When/What is research relevant or appropriate to CSIRO? - What are acceptable reasons for initiating a particular piece of

- What are the appropriate attitudes toward consulting projects? - What are acceptable forms of collaborative research, both within

Judgements of relevance, appropriateness and acceptability are necessarily subjective and even within an individual will vary as the prevailing political mood and organisational priorities vary. There seems to be little point in trying to answer these questions once and for all. Rather, it would seem more appropriate to argue that these are the key issues, and I believe that the experience of biometricians and statisticians over the last fifty-six years supports this view.

The CSIR biometricians of the 1930s, beginning with Betty Allan, were primarily engaged in what we now call statistical consulting and collaborative work, with the remainder of their time devoted to educational and training activities. Although Rivett recognised the desirability of giving Betty Allan the opportunity to do her own (statistical) research, it seems to me likely that she accorded this a lower priority than providing assistance to the Council’s scientists. Her Chief certainly did and as there was always more than enough work of this kind to occupy all her time, no statistical research got done.

Ten years later Cornish had little difficulty obtaining recognition for the research role of biometricians, later called mathematical statisticians, in the CSIR, and after the war a steady stream of both theoretical and applied etatiaticd research began and has continued to this day, If there

research?

and outside CSIRO?

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ever was a battle over the issue of whether the Organisation’s statisticians should be permitted to carry out their own research, and in my view there has never been any difficulty here, it was fought and won by Cornish in the early 1940s.

But if the right of DMS statisticians to carry out research has never seriously been questioned, the range of areas or topics deemed suitable for research has been hotly debated in recent years, in my own opinion quite justifiably. I can point to many examples of statistical research, both theoretical and applied, undertaken by DMS scientists past and present, which would certainly not be regarded as relevant or appropriate to CSIRO now, and whose relevance or appropriateness at the time they were done must be regarded as questionable. Clearly some such work is an unavoidable and perhaps even desirable spin-off from other, more relevant or appropriate research, but it is often justified on the grounds that it is necessary to permit such work to keep the very best statisticians in the Division. Such an approach ignores the fundamental question of just what else such statisticians could be doing.

CSIRO has provided in the past and in my view will continue to provide a superb environment in which the very best statistical research work can be carried out. In it one meets a very wide range of significant sdentific, technological and industrial questions whose answers frequently require statistical research, and I believe that the best advances in our subject have been made in response to such questions. Furthermore, these questions are usually so important to our national interest that it is a dereliction of our duty to pursue other less relevant research rather than address them,

Coming to DMS in 1983 with a brief to implement the 1981 Review, whose recommended objectives for the Division have already been cited, I felt that I should try to encourage the research of the Division into a small number of areas which had a clear and acceptable rationale and in which the Division already had a strong record. It seemed to me then, and still does, that there are a large number of statistical research topics which satisfy aU reasonable requirements of relevance, appropriateness and so on, and that from amongst these we should choose those which looked to the future, and for which there were good research leaders.

There is a slight change in role here, I believe, from the traditional one, because the statisticians in question are pursuing strategic research in particular areas of relevance to CSIRO or Industry, but are not necessarily addressing specific questions which have arisen in consulting or collabora-


tive work. The areas in question are the analysis of remotely sensed data, image analysis, geostatistics, and time series and signal andysis. In a way this part of the Division’s work is much closer to the traditional role of other CSIRO Divisions; most of the remainder of our activity continues to be consulting and collaborative work with associated applied researh. University statistics departments are now fairly well staffed, and assistance from DMS in teaching is only sought occasionally, typically to help teach a specialized area of applied statistics.

Our most recent project, Industrial Statistics, also involves a rather different role from any previous one, that of going out into industry in search of opportunities to assist firms to increase their productivity and competitiveness using statistics. Activities here include consciousness- raising, consulting, often via SIROMATH, and the conduct of applied research, all aimed at helping individual companies or groups of companies. Interestingly, some of the industry problems now being addressed are often the very ones highlighted by Cornish in 1944 when he originally proposed that the (then) Section carry out research in industrial statistics.

In the course of preparing a strategic plan for the Division recently, we expressed our view of the current function of the statisticians in the Division in the following mission statement.

1. To apply statistics in support of research throughout CSIRO and to conduct research related to such applications.

2. To provide a source of statistical expertise, available to Australian industry for collaboration or consultation and to carry out the research necessary for maintaining this role.

3. To promote and demonstrate throughout CSIRO and industry the usefulness of statistical thinking.

Thus the traditional role of DMS, while remaining pre-eminent, is supplemented by an explicitly recognised industrial role and a further mis- sionary role. The last-mentioned is in a sense a recognition both of the need for some group to be filling this role and the obvious fact that with its limited size and resources, DMS can in most cases do little more than promote and demonstrate; others must eventually carry out the real statistical work.

8. A Look into the Futu re

The Science and Industry Research Act (1949) is undergoing yet another amendment this year (1986) and although only very minor changes

32 T.P. SPEED

are being made to the Section 9 describing the functions of the Organisa- tion, a major shift in attitude is intended. Speaking a t the second reading of the Amendment Bill the Minister of Science, Mr Barry Jones said

" Australia must become a more intellectually active scientific and technological culture. . . .

A strong local capability in research and development, di- rected to the opportunities of the future, not the past, is essen- tial. This will be the fundamental role of the restructured CSIRO resulting from the Amendment Bill before the House today. . . .

In particular CSIRO will play a major role in contributing to the Government's program of restructuring and revitalizing high-technology manufacturing, and in supporting the emerging information and space technology industries. . . .

The Organisation is being encouraged to take on more short term problem solving projects, to be paid for largely by the individual companies concerned."

(Hansard, p. 854, 17 September 1986) What does all this mean for DMS? One clear point seems to me to

be this: in addition to continuing its consulting and collaborative work within CSIRO, and doing the associated applied research, the Division must do more statistical work directly with Industry, where directly here means not necessarily through SIROMATH at full consulting rates, and not necessarily in conjunction with another CSIRO Division. Clearly, there will continue to be industrial consulting and collaborative work jointly with these groups, and in some ways this may be a preferred model, but the Division cannot afford to sit back and accept a role which leaves its future dependent on the activity and priorities of a commercial company, on the one hand, or other CSIRO Divisions on the other. There are many possible models for a direct role of DMS statisticians in industry and these must be explored to learn which lead to the best use of the human and financial resources of the Division.

Do statisticians have a role in "high-technology and manufacturing, . . . , information and space technology industries"? Our work with satellite images is on the periphery of space science; some of what we currently do with traditional manufacturing industries has relevance to high-tech industries, and there do seem to be areas in which statisticians can contribute to information technology e.g., in helping test or otherwise determine the reliability of very large programs or in developing software for image analysis systems. But I must confess that I do not have a very clear idea


what we could do in these areas, although 1 think it is important for us to try to find out. Similarly we should investigate ways in which DMS can assist research in advanced materials science and technology, an area in which CSIRO has special expertise and which promises to be important to Australia’s future.

In case it sounds as though I lead a group of statisticians searching for a role embodying the sentiments of the latest Ministerial speech, let me close with the following remarks. Statisticians possess knowledge and skills which will always have a valued place in an organisation such as CSIRO and always be useful to industry. There will always be experiments to design, samples to be taken, variability to be analysed, curves or models to be fitted, and so on, but the areas in which we do these and other things must change as the nation’s needs and priorities change. And as these changes occur we must become familiar with new areas of science, technology and industry, learn new techniques, do different kinds of research, and work towards different goals. Other Divisions can be phased out, divided and reassembled, or started up to meet the changing needs and priorities of the Organisation and the nation, and it is only by a similar process of adaptation within DMS that we can continue to do relevant and appropriate statistical work in support of the Organisation and the nation. This may be quite painful, but it is also very stimulating!

9. Acknowledgements

I am very grateful for the willing assistance of staff of the CSIRO Archives, to John Field for access to his manuscript concerning Betty Al- lan, to a number of colleagues for their comments on early versions of this paper, and to my wife Sally for her comments and assistance in its prepara- tion. Note that quotations from archival material have not been explicitly identified.

Note added in proof A sequence of decisions beginning in June 1987 has led to a complete rejection by the Board of CSIRO of the role for the Division whose nature and evolution has been described in this paper.

10. References BOX, JOAN FISHER (1978). R.A. Fisher. The Life of a Suentist. Sydney: John Wdey

CURRIE, G. & GRAHAM, J. (1966). The Origins of CSIRO. Melbourne: Commonwealth

FIELD, J.B.F. (1986). Frances Elizabeth Allan. (Unpublished manuscript.)

k Sons.

Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation.

34 T.P. SPEED

MORAN, P.A.P. (1974). Edmond Alfred Cornish. Records of the Australian Academy

RIVETT, R. (1972). David Rivett: Fighter for Australian Science. Melbourne: Rivett. WHITE, Sir FREDERICK (1975). CSIR to CSIRO - The events of 1948-1949. Admin-

of Science 2, 41-47.

istration (Sydney) 94, 281-293.

Received December 1986; revised June 1987

the role of statisticians in csiro: past, present and future

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