Professor Paul Smith
Professor of Official Statistics, Director of Southampton Statistical Sciences Research Institute (S3RI)

Paul Smith joined Southampton Statistical Sciences Research Institute (S3RI) and the Dept of Social Statistics & Demography in September 2014 and is now Professor of Official Statistics, with a particular interest in sampling, estimation and other statistical methods applied to government statistics. He was appointed as Director of S3RI from the beginning of 2021.
It is important to have evidence on the best statistical methods so that high quality official statistics can be produced efficiently
Paul graduated in Botany and Maths from the University of Wales in Bangor, and has an MSc in Statistics from Sheffield University. He worked for 25 years in the Office for National Statistics, spending most of that time in the Methodology area, where he gained extensive experience in the theory and practice of sample surveys applied to businesses, households and the population census.
Paul is a member of the Royal Statistical Society, an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, and a member of the International Association of Survey Statisticians and International Association for Official Statistics. He was the Discussion Papers Editor for the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 2017-20, and is Associate Editor for Survey Methodology and the Journal of Official Statistics. He has been a member of the Advisory Panel on Consumer Prices (Technical) since its inception in 2015.
In addition to his work on official statistics, Paul is interested in vascular plants and their parasitic fungi (particularly rusts and smuts). He volunteers for the Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland (BSBI) as Plant Recorder for the Outer Hebrides.
He was the Discussion Papers Editor for the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 2017-20, and is Associate Editor for Survey Methodology and the Journal of Official Statistics.