ROYAL STATISTICAL SOCIETY MANCHESTER STUDENT PRIZE 2009 Notes for the Supervisors/Tutors

You are invited to encourage your most promising final-year undergraduate student(s) to submit a project of an applied nature involving a substantial amount of Statistics for entry into the RSS Manchester Student Prize competition.

Who can enter?

The Prize is open to all final-year undergraduates at Universities in the North West of England – a full list of eligible institutions can be found at:

www.rss-manchester.org/prize.html

How is it organized?

There are two categories of entries: (1) students having Mathematics and/or Statistics as their main subject; (2) those whose main subject is not Mathematics or Statistics.

Three prizes are available for award in each of the two categories (Gold - £100; Silver - £70; Bronze - £50), and will only be awarded if entries of sufficient quality are received.

How is it judged?

The Awards Committee will consider the following characteristics of the projects:

1. Accuracy and skill in the presentation of the data, methods and results.
2. Understanding and clarity of expression of the method and background to the data.
3. Difficulty of the material (non-mathematical and non-statistical majors will not be expected to have the same depth of understanding as the mathematical or statistical ones).
4. Originality of the application of existing method(s) to new data (not just a reproduction of previously published results).
5. Practical importance and relevance of the results.

Development of new methods and their application to data would also be considered, but it is not anticipated that this will occur very often.

There is a panel of 9 independent judges who grade the submitted projects against these characteristics.

How do my students enter?

All correspondence is conducted by email. Students are instructed to email a completed entry form together with their project and ask their supervisor/tutor to provide a statement confirming support for their entry.

We would be grateful if you could please email a short statement of support for your student and their project, confirming its suitability for entry to the Prize, to:

Dr Richard Emsley, Chairman of the RSS Manchester Local Group at

by Monday 31^st May 2010.

Additional Questions

If you have any additional questions about the RSS Manchester Prize, please visit www.rss-manchester.org for further information, or contact Dr Richard Emsley.