Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) is an academic institute of national importance as recognised by a 1959 act of the Indian parliament. It grew out of the Statistical Laboratory set up by Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis in Presidency College, Kolkata. Established in 1931, this public university of India is one of the oldest and most prestigious institutions focused on statistics, and its early reputation led it to being adopted as a model for the first US institute of Statistics set up at the Research Triangle, North Carolina by Gertrude Mary Cox.

Mahalanobis, the founder of ISI, was deeply influenced by wisdom and guidance of Rabindranath Tagore and Brajendranath Seal. Under his leadership, the institute initiated and promoted the interaction of Statistics with natural and social sciences to advance the role of Statistics as a key technology by explicating the twin aspects – its general applicability and its dependence on other disciplines for its own development. The institute is now considered as one of the foremost centres in the world for training and research in Statistics and related sciences.