The Royal Statistical Society has about 6500 members across the world. It is the earliest established of all the world's Statistics societies, having been founded as the Statistical Society of London by Babbage and others in 1834. The stated purposes of the RSS include: (i) to nurture the discipline of Statistics by publishing a journal, organizing meetings, setting and maintaining professional standards, accrediting university courses and operating examinations, (ii) to promote the discipline of Statistics by disseminating and encouraging statistical knowledge and good practice among producers and consumers of Statistics and in society at large. The Society publishes the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society (currently in three series, A, B, and C).

The Society awards the Guy Medal in Gold to persons ‘judged to have merited a signal mark of distinction by reason of their innovative contributions to the theory or application of Statistics’.

http://www.rss.org.uk/ Society home page.