Professor Peter Lynn from the Institute for Social and Economic Research was recently a guest of the Government of the Serb Republic after being involved in a project that has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Peter was one of two international collaborators invited to take part in a celebration of the nomination. The project, led by three statisticians from three Balkan countries formerly at war with one another, brought together more than 600 statisticians from more than 100 countries and resulted in the publication of the Encyclopaedia of Statistical Science.

Peter Lynn contributed a chapter to the encyclopedia on “Sample survey methods”. During his visit, Peter had an audience with the President of the Republic, Milorad Dodik, and with the Presdient of the National Academy of Sciences and Arts. He was also interviewed by State television about the project and its nomination for the Peace Prize.

The Government of the Republika Srbska (RS), one of three autonomous entities within Bosnia and Herzegovina, has made the nomination for the Nobel prize. The nominees are Serbian Miodrag Lovric, Bosnian Jasmin Komić and Croatian Ksenija Dumičić. It is hoped that the award of the prize would provide a signal that a political solution to the problems of the region can only come through joint work and concessions, rather than war and violence.

One of the main aims of the encyclopedia is to raise the standard and profile of statistics in the Balkan states. ISER researchers have previously contributed to this objective through a series of projects in Bosnia. These involved setting up a household panel survey, training government statisticians, building research infrastructure, and developing a survey sampling framework.