This article briefly outlines milestones for the Russian information and science journal «Voprosy statistiki» amid its 100th anniversary. The paper addresses the story behind the establishment of a national professional periodical journal and presents objective and goals set before at its creation in January 1919. A point of emphasis is that applied mathematics is vital for shaping statistics as a tool, in contemporary terms, of modelling socio-economic processes. There is a need for aiming statistics at obtaining specific practical effects in executive decision-making.

There is an attempt to set a historical timeline of the evolution of editorial policy and provide a brief content-related description of publishing activities, advanced topics in statistics at some stages of development of the country, place of statistics in society, its relationship with the state. The author mentions issues of the journal dating to various periods of the journal history: pre-war and post-war, the Thaw, perestroika, post-perestroika and modern period. The paper references relevant articles authored by Russian and various foreign statisticians, researchers, professors, practitioners in statistics. The author identifies the role of journal founder in developing common content-related strategy, improvement of editorial policy. The article describes the evolution of the editorial policy in the last 25 years, modern day issues and challenges facing the journal editors and possible solutions for them.

The first issue of the journal «Vestnik statistiki» («Bulletin of Statistics») came out 100 years ago. It was in print till 1929 and then from 1949 to1993. Its successor «Voprosy statistiki» has been published since 1994. This article covers the journal’s contents in its first decade. The author focuses on academic articles on statistical methodology and overviews articles addressing applied state statistics. The importance of interaction and collaboration between statisticians from the central office of the Central Statistical Board and statistical offices «in the field» is stressed. During that time the journal continued to publish translations of foreign articles along with detailed reviews of translations of books by foreign authors. The article draws attention to the formation of industrial and energy statistics, as well as the development of balance sheet and, above all, questions of the methodology and practice related to the Balance of the National Economy. Examples of delivering innovation in statistical observation - using aerial photography for the needs of agricultural statistics, are put forward. Criticism against state statisticsopenedwhen Vladimir Lenin was the Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, which led to the gradual abolition of the analytical functions of statistics, ignoring the variation of indicators and replacing statistics with the «national economic accounting». As a result, in 1929 the publication of the journal «Vestnik statistiki» was suspended.

This article addresses the evolution of editorial policy and content creation process for the journal «Voprosy statistiki» - the leading periodical statistical publication in Russia. The paper covers questions of continuity of tradition and the need to revise editorial policy of scientific periodical publications. The author describes journal issues as for their compliance with Russian and international scientometric databases. The article considers key objectives included in the development program for the journal, in particular, the quality of materials on statistics, the international visibility of the journal and providing stable distribution channels. The paper also focuses on the role of statistical community in maintaining high scientific quality of publications and proactive position of the journal on covering and studying questions of statistical science and practice, on informing on the progress of plans and tasks for the further development of the official national statistics.

This article covers some development directions for the professional statistical journal that is the journal «Voprosy statistiki». There are two fundamental principles of editorial policy of the journal: first, the adherence to best traditions of the established editorial school; second, implementing reasonably required modernizations that is essential for the development of the journal. The author comments on the positive trends in updating the remit of the journal, its information density; improving the quality of scientific publications and their compliance with contemporary tasks facing the state statistics system.

The paper argues that the journal should enhance its function as an instrument of feedback for the editors and the readers, and the institute of official statistics and the general public. In this regard, there is a necessity to revise the ways to increase the journal’s audience and the pool of potential authors who determine the content of the journal as well as its distribution forms - printed and electronic format.

The author addresses further steps towards improving the competitiveness of the journal «Voprosy statistiki», its promotion in the global science and information space of professional statistical publications.

A country’s industrial performance can be assessed using a number of statistical indicators reflecting the level, growth and structure of industrial activities. However, policymakers prefer a single composite measure over a set of indicators to obtain an overall picture of their country’s relative performance compared to that of other countries. The paper describes UNIDO’s experience of constructing such a measure, namely the Competitive Industrial Performance (CIP) index, which considers countries’ productive capacity, intensity of industrialization and impact on the world market as major components of industrial performance. The compilation of the CIP index, however, poses two major challenges. First, the composite measure for a broad international comparison can only be constructed when data are available for all indicators and if the computation methodology is uniform across the countries. Second, as the final result is a normalized index used for country ranking, any uncertainty in one of the indicators may result in a shift of a given country in the overall ranking. The primary data source for the compilation of the CIP index is UNIDO’s database based on an underlying quality assurance framework for international comparability. To address the second problem, a sensitivity analysis is performed. The analysis reveals a substantially high correlation between the default CIP rankings and the alternatives, indicating that the composite measures are robust in a comparative assessment of countries’ industrial performance.

This article was prepared to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the journal «Voprosy statistiki» (up to 1994 - «Bulletin of Statistics»). It deals with retrospect analysis of the background and milestones of establishment and development of Russian natural resources and environmental statistics (the journal delved into some of its aspects relating mostly to the modern stage).

The material consists of two parts. First - contains the genesis of natural resources statistics using the example of land resources and land use, as well as forest resources and forest use. As for the accounting and statistical reflection of land resources and land use, this retrospective study covers the period from the XVII century and then in more detail from the XVIII century. The author assesses statistical recording done by the outstanding Russian statisticians Zhuravsky D.P. and Janson Y.E. on the special decree of Catherine II from 1765. The article reviews the fundamental characteristics of 1877-1878, 1887 and 1905 land censuses in the Russian Empire. The paper presents the main stages and features of recording and reporting (including census) activities in this field in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods.

When introducing accounting and statistical reflection of forest resources and forest use the author focuses on changes in the departmental hierarchy of statistical units that led to revisions of approaches to accounting. There also is a detailed description of the original entry of data on standing timber. The paper references specific difficulties associated with the statistical treatment of forest accounting in the Soviet and modern period.

The second part of the article addresses the details and specific features of the formation and development of natural environment protection statistics in the Russian Empire, the USSR (RSFSR) and the modern Russian Federation. It notes both the achievements made at a given stage and the shortcomings that have occurred. There has been a continuity in methodological developments and organizational arrangements, acquiring practical experience in implementing various methods of statistical observations and forms of statistical reporting (surveying). The article indicates that the quality of the relevant accounting and statistics depends on the performance of the general public administration related to efficient use of the resources and natural environment protection. The information on forms of statistical reporting in this field is organized covering both the system of federal statistics and ministries and departments of the natural resource/environment protection block.

The article briefly overviews primary environmental data depicting the state and dynamics of Russian natural resources for 1976-1990, and in more detail for 1997-2017.

Decreasing demand for quality data from governing bodies, the insufficient qualifications of those who work with the national documents that, for example, include specific environmental indicators, was among the major drawbacks of recent years.

The author presented conclusions and proposals on improving information and statistical support of environmental management, maintaining and restoring natural resources.