Statistics Canada is pleased to announce the appointment of Jean-François Beaumont, senior statistical advisor at Statistics Canada, as the new editor of Survey Methodology, effective January 1, 2021. Jean-François Beaumont has been associated with the journal for 20 years; he first served as assistant editor from 2000–2010, and then as associate editor from 2010–2020. He published several papers in a number of peer-reviewed journals, including nine in Survey Methodology.

Jean-François Beaumont succeeds Dr. Wesley Yung, who has been the editor of Survey Methodology since 2015. Dr. Yung will remain a member of the management board and will continue to contribute to the journal as associate editor. We deeply thank him for his valuable contributions as editor over the past five years. Amongst other achievements, he steered the journal into publishing more than 80 papers. He also led the journal in publishing a special issue as part of a collaboration with the International Statistical Review in honour of Prof. J. N. K. Rao's contributions. Dr. Yung was also instrumental in the implementation of the ScholarOne online manuscripts submission system in 2019.

Survey Methodology has evolved tremendously over the past 45 years under the leadership of the previous editors, starting with Dr. M. P. Singh (1975–2005), and then John Kovar (2006–2009), Dr. Michel Hidiroglou (2010–2015) and recently Dr. Wesley Yung (2016–2020). In the first years after its creation, the journal published papers mainly from Statistics Canada’s authors but it soon acquired the worldwide reputation of a high-quality journal for survey statisticians and methodologists under the dedicated editorship of Dr. M. P. Singh. Survey Methodology continued to thrive under the subsequent editors to become the journal we know today. It nowadays publishes innovative theoretical or applied statistical research papers from international authors on issues relevant to the activities of National Statistical Offices.

While the contributions of previous editors were invaluable in making Survey Methodology a journal with international stature, we look forward to see where Jean-François Beaumont will take the journal in the years to come. There is a new publication landscape with many players in the field and authors have heightened expectations in terms of review expediencies. While navigating this new ecosystem, we are confident that Survey Methodology will continue to flourish under the editorship of Jean-François Beaumont and that it will keep its same essential core value of scientific rigour.

Survey Methodology is available for free at www.statcan.gc.ca\SurveyMethodology.   

Yours sincerely,

Eric Rancourt
Chairman of the Management Board, Survey Methodology
Director General, Modern Statistical Methods and Data Science Branch
Statistics Canada