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The professorship of Statistics was established in the Faculty of Economics and Administration in 1965, the first year of the Faculty itself. Until then, Statistics had been taught in the Faculty of Social Sciences, which had had an associate professorship of Statistics since 1962. The first full professor was Dr Eino Haikala, who held the chair until retiring in 1976. The second professor, Dr Tarmo Pukkila, had obtained his doctorate at our University. He was the Rector of the University from 1987 to 1993, 1993 he became the Head of the Insurance Department in the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. At present the professorial chair is held by Dr Erkki Liski, who was appointed Professor of Statistics in 1996. Since 1.8.2001 the Department of Mathematics, Statistics and Philosophy is located in the Faculty of Information Sciences, which was founded in the same day.

During the first few years - in the late sixties and early seventies - the main emphasis was naturally placed on teaching. The number of students at all levels of basic degrees was large, which meant that most of the academic staff was needed for teaching. Most resources were - and still are - taken up by basic courses and subject studies. Since the 1980s, the number of students majoring in Statistics has been smaller than hoped for, despite good employment opportunities. However, the problem of declining student numbers is not exclusively ours but a global one, extending to other mathematical sciences as well. The situation is gradually improving, but it seems that the demand for statisticians is growing faster than the supply.

Getting started in scientific research is a slow process. Nevertheless, our Department soon had postgraduate students, and the first doctoral degrees were obtained in 1976. The early research concentrated mainly on sampling theory and time series analysis but extended later to linear models, growth curves, and quality control. The research on linear models and time series analysis has been especially dynamic, leading to international contacts with scholars all over the world. The Department has also organized several high-level conferences on linear models, time series analysis, and growth curve theories. These have attracted top scientists of the field, both as keynote speakers and as participants. 

The important international contacts of our Department include one of the most remarkable statisticians of all times, Professor C.R. Rao, who was awarded an honorary doctorate of Tampere University in 1985.

The Department has extensive co-operation with a number of other universities throughout the world. Frequent relations are maintained with the Indian Statistical Institute in New Delhi, the Canadian McGill University, the University of Dortmund in Germany, the University of Science and Technology in Beijing, the University of Sheffield in UK and the Auckland University in New Zealand. The Department has many agreements covering student and teacher exchange, for example SOCRATES/ ERASMUS -programme. The high quality of our research is reflected in the number of scholarships for Senior Fellows awarded to our Department by the Academy of Finland.

Being a methodological science, Statistics is involved in everything that has to do with measuring observable phenomena. Our Department has traditionally worked in close contact with economists, social scientists and medical scientists. We have close co-operation with the Tampere University of Technology as well: Tampere Graduate School in Information Science and Engineering (TISE) is a doctoral (PhD) program, offered jointly by Tampere University of Technology (TUT) and the University of Tampere (UTA). TISE offers advanced courses in Information Science and Engineering, and supervision of students within already existing research projects. Especially worth mentioning is the long-term research project on forest harvesting, led by Professor Erkki Liski. The project was awarded one of the highest grants of the Ministry of Education, as well as financing from the Academy of Finland for a three year period.

The Statistics units in the Finnish universities being small, the Department of Mathematics, Statistics and Philosophy (until August 1998 Department of Mathematical Sciences) has decided to focus on Mathematical Statistics, thus joining forces of mathematicians and statisticians.

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