Foreword by Rajko Kuzmanovic
In the Republic of Srpska, and in Bosnia and Herzegovina, we need to encourage statistics both as a science and as an aid to developing the economy of our region. This Encyclopedia goes a significant way towards meeting that challenge. It provides us with international visibility in statistics, it demonstrates our unity, energy and judgement, and it shows our capacity for collaboration.
However, the Encyclopedia does much more than that. This storehouse of the knowledge and wisdom of statisticians from around the world displays the unity of the broad international statistics community, and provides a resource of substantial scientific benefit to all nations. It demystifies the concepts and philosophy of statistics, not just to students and researchers in the field but to their many non-statistician colleagues in other areas, who need to understand statistics in order to make progress in their own disciplines. As the historian Theodore Porter wrote, "statistics ... is evidently among the products of science whose influence on public and private life has been most pervasive."
For all these reasons we believe that the Encyclopedia will become the starting point for still further development of scientific knowledge, and be of influence for many years to come. At least in our region we feel that time, in the statistics community, will henceforth be designated as BE or AE — before the Encyclopedia, or after it.
Speaking personally, it is with unconcealed pride in this achievement that I take this opportunity to express my great satisfaction with the project, and my deep gratitude to the scientists and scholars who have contributed so generously to it. I believe that the Encyclopedia will inspire a younger generation of statistical scientists to study and dedicate themselves to the discipline. It will draw them closer to researchers
President Academy of Sciences and Arts Republic of Srpska
Academician Rajko Kuzmanovic, Ph.D.
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