Scientific Programme for ISI 2011
Water, food, energy, climate change, financial systems and urbanisation are all sources of substantial global challenges. Statistics is central to the understanding of these challenges and to the development of productive responses to them.
The World Statistics Congress – the biennial meeting of the International Statistical Institute (ISI) - is unique in bringing together statisticians and probabilists from across the disciplinary spectrum – official statistics, surveying and sampling, computational & mathematical statistics, probability and stochastic modelling and education. Moreover, it brings together statisticians from developing nations and from developed nations to share experiences, expertise and challenges.
The 2011 meeting is an opportunity for this broad community to demonstrate its relevance to addressing global challenges and the directions and quality of its research. It will include presentations on recent research and applications, training for statisticians on key topics and a forum to discuss opportunities for work on important topics. It will also be an opportunity for statisticians and probabilists to identify new research topics and possible new collaborators.
An innovation in 2011 meeting will be a special Theme Day, during which all papers will address, from various statistical perspectives, “Water, quality and quantity”.
Components of the Scientific Programme
The key components of the Programme will be Sessions for Invited Papers, (IPS), Special Topics (STS) and Contributed Papers (CPS). [Contributed Papers may be presented as Posters or as Lectures.] In addition, a number of Training Courses and Satellite Meetings will be organised by ISI Sections and Committees.
Invited Paper Sessions
IPS’s are central to each ISI biennial Conference. Each IPS consists of 3 papers plus discussion. An aim of each IPS is to attract a diverse group of statisticians and to promote communication among them. Ideally, each IPS will be of interest to members of more than one Section and will link developers and users of statistical methodology.
While the majority of IPS’s will relate to the interests of the Sections and Committees (see http://isi.cbs.nl/committees.htm) of ISI, there will be a sub-group of IPS’s devoted to a special Theme.
Water, Quality and Quantity
One day of the ISI Conference will be largely devoted to papers where statistics has a key role to play on this special Theme.
Special Topic Sessions
Sessions on topics proposed by members of the ISI and its Sections and selected by the Programme Coordinating Committee. They typically consist of 5 papers (or 4 papers and a discussant) invited by the organiser of the Session.
Contributed Papers Sessions
ISI 2011 will provide attendees with the opportunity to contribute papers to the proceedings and present them at the Conference. These may be presented either as a poster in a Poster Session or as a Lecture in a Contributed Paper Session. In Poster Sessions, Authors will have an opportunity to introduce their poster (2 minutes) and then will be available for the rest of the Session to discuss their paper with attendees. In a lecture presentation, the author will have 15 minutes to present their paper.
Training and Courses
A number of training and learning activities will be held as part of the ISI meeting in Dublin. Activities will include:
1. Training courses aimed principally at early career statisticians and statisticians from countries where access to advanced training may be difficult to arrange.
2. Tutorials and workshops aimed principally at people wishing to learn about a particular topic in greater depth. This will usually be a topic where research is advancing quickly.
Satellite Meetings
A number of Satellite Meetings, to be held before or after the main meeting, will be organised by Sections of the ISI.
