The Lars H. Backer Prize 2025 in memoriam of Mr. Lars H. Backer was awarded to Rina Tammisto (Statistics Finland) due to her many significant contributions to the integration of geospatial data and statistics over the past 20 years.
Rina was always there, connecting people and open for cooperation, highlighting her early international cooperation that led to the Nordic Gridclub in 2005, as the world’s first transnational population grid, unleashing the interest in population grid maps. Thus, Rina laid the foundation for today’s geocoded European census by setting the milestone to create the first European grid map in 2005.
This year nomination also underscores Rina’s tireless commitment to establishing a solid methodological and conceptual foundation for the georeferencing of official statistics and the systematic use of geospatial data for statistical purposes. In this regard, Rina recognised the critical importance of a solid methodological base for data integration at an early stage.
Also, Rina’s pioneering work on the European version of Geospatial-Statistical Framework (GSGF) and innovative contributions to the geospatial view of the GSBPM should be noted.
In a nutshell, Rina combines professional and personal characteristics that are rarely found in such harmony in one person: methodical accuracy and flexibility, perseverance and pragmatism, intellectual curiosity and enthusiasm, respect for the perspectives of others, kindness and unwavering optimism.
