Statistics is for statisticians

By Valentin Amrhein

No, I’m not a statistician. I’m one of those biologists who, for decades, misused null hypothesis significance testing for testing hypotheses.

Recently, I don’t even do a lot of statistical analyses on my own. As soon as it gets a little complicated, but often also if it seems trivial, I’m reaching out to a statistician who will likely help if I ask persistently enough.

I really wonder how people can do research and publish papers without having a statistician on board. But obviously it does happen. Read more here

CO2 vs CO19

The CO2 vs CO19 project equips schools with CO2 traffic lights. The pupils not only learn correct ventilation behaviour, but also acquire data literacy. An exercise to understand the knowledge pyramid using the CO2 traffic light is described here.
The project focuses on CO2 measurement in rooms with an integrated alarm that calls for ventilation if the CO2 content in the room is too high. Contact person: Christian Ruiz

the annual Statistiktage conference

The SSS organises a conference every year, details can always be found on statistiktage.ch.

winner of the Lambert Award 2021

The winner of the Lambert Award 2021 is Sebastian Engelke for his contributions in the fields of extreme value theory and graphical models.

Sebastian Engelke was born in 1986, in Germany. He obtained a PhD in Mathematics from University of Goettingen in 2013. Since then he has been working in Switzerland, first at EPFL and University of Lausanne, and since 2018 at University of Geneva. Sebastian Engelke is currently Associate professor at the Research Center for Statistics of the University of Geneva.

His plenary talk given at the Swiss Statistical Meeting in Lugano 2021 can be downloaded here.

stick-to-science - for a common research space in EU, CH and UK

An online signature campaign for an open and inclusive European Research Area

The Stick to Science initiative has been set up by the European research community calling for open and barrier-free collaboration among Europe’s research and innovation (R&I) actors, who all share the same values. The initiative is an active response to the delayed  progression of association agreements with Switzerland and the United Kingdom (UK), which are being held up by political barriers that have nothing to do with science. 

The signatories request that the European Council, Parliament, Commission, as well as European Union (EU) Member States, and the governments of the UK and Switzerland, recognise that advancement in R&I is best achieved when all actors in science and innovation work together across geographic boundaries. This has never been more important than now, as the world faces serious global challenges (e.g., mitigating pandemics, climate change, and addressing food security). Allowing political differences to prevent scientific collaboration is contrary to the interests of society at large. Read more here!