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About NISS

NISS is an independent research institute, established in 1990, in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. NISS is dedicated to strengthening and serving the national statistics community, most notably by catalyzing community members’ participation in applied research driven by challenges facing government and industry.

It does so by:

  • Performing and stimulating high-impact research at critical interfaces between statistics and disciplinary science, as well as between industry/government and academia
  • Supporting career development at all levels, with special emphasis on those in the formative stages of their career
  • Engaging the national community in a variety of activities, especially but not exclusively by means of the affiliates programs and SAMSI.

Most important, NISS is an institute created by and serving the US and international statistical sciences community, and through which that community serves the nation and the world. The parent organizations of NISS include the American Statistical Association, International Biometric Society, the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, Duke University, North Carolina State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Research Triangle Institute. NISS is governed by a Board of Trustees drawn from the parent organizations and the statistical and scientific communities.

Research at NISS is project-oriented. NISS performs applied, high-impact research on important national issues for government and industrial clients. NISS is a partner with the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and RTI in operation of the Education Statistics Services Institute—Statistics (ESSI–Stat) and NAEP Education Statistics Services Institute (NESSI). The products of the research include scientific insights that inform both future research and policy, software that implements scientific advances, and strongly positive career impact on those who participate in the research.Support comes from government agencies, industrial research partners, the Research Triangle universities and corporate and university affiliates.