R Core Team
Also known as R Core
R Core Team builds and maintains R, an open-source language for statistical computing and data science. The project began around 1990 with Robert Gentleman and Ross Ihaka, formed a nine-member core group in 1997, and released R 1.0.0 in 2000. In 2019, the mlr3 ecosystem used R for regression, classification, and other machine-learning tasks; by 2020, open-source R had become a dominant source of new software for statistics and data science. The team released R 4.6.0 in April 2026, and five members received the Rousseeuw Prize for Statistics in June 2026. The current core team holds write access to R's source, a role that began in 1997.
Timeline
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1990s
The R project begins
R begins around 1990 as the informal endeavour of Robert Gentleman and Ross Ihaka, both then at Auckland University in New Zealand.
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1997
Forming the R Core group
In 1997, the project formalizes an R Core group of nine members.
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2000
Releasing R 1.0.0
The R Core group releases version 1.0.0 of R in 2000.
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2019
R in machine learning
In 2019, the mlr3 ecosystem provides an extensible framework in R for regression, classification, and machine-learning tasks.
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By 2020
R supports data science
By 2020, open-source R becomes a dominant source of new software for statistics and data science.
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April 2026
Releasing R 4.6.0
In April 2026, R Core Team releases R 4.6.0 with new features, API changes, and bug fixes.
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June 2026
A Rousseeuw Prize
In June 2026, five members of the R Core Team receive the Rousseeuw Prize for Statistics for their work building and maintaining R.
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Since 1997
Maintaining R's source code
Since 1997, the R Core Team holds write access to R's source and remains responsible for developing the basic software and its distribution infrastructure.
Sources and credits
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