• 2021: Ewain Gwynne, University of Chicago
  who delivered the Kendall Lecture during the RSS International Conference 2022, September 12-15, 2022 in Aberdeen.

A major challenge in many modern economic, epidemiological, ecological and biological questions is to understand the randomness in the network structure of the entities they study. Although analysis of data on networks goes back to at least the 1930s, the importance of statistical network modelling for many areas of substantial science has become more pronounced since the turn of the century.  This Committee on Statistical Network Science (CSNS) will focus on promoting and fostering research in statistical and probabilistic network analysis, in the wider sense. This remit includes graphical models, random graph models as well complex functional network models.

Committee Members:

• (Chair) Gesine Reinert (University of Oxford, UK), Professor of Statistics. Editor-in-chief for SpringerBriefs in Probability and Mathematical Statistics. 
  
  
• Vladimir Batagelj (University of Ljubljana, Slowenia), Professor Emeritus Of Mathematics, is known for his work in discrete mathematics and combinatorial optimization, particularly analysis of social networks and other large networks.
  
  
• Anuška Ferligoj (University of Ljubljana, Slowenia), Faculty of Social Sciences, Professor Emeritus, is an elected member of the European Academy of Sociology and International Statistical Institute, and has been a member of boards of the International Network for Social Network Analysis, International Federation of Classification Societies, and International Sociological Association.
  
  
• Claire Gormley (School of Mathematics and Statistics, University College Dublin, Ireland), co-director of the Science Foundation Ireland Centre for Research Training (CRT) in Foundations of Data Science.
  
  
• Sarika Jalan (Indian Institute of Technology Indore, India), Complex Systems Lab. Professor Salan is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Computational Science and Executive Member of the Complex Systems Society.
  
  
• Goeran Kauermann (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany), Chair of Applied Statistics in Social Sciences, Economics and Business.
  
  
• Eric D. Kolaczyk (Boston University, USA), Professor of Statistics, Director, Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing.
  
  
• Clelia Di Serio (Università della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano, and San Raffaele Vita-Salute University, Milano, Italy), Professor in Statistics.
  
  
• Veronica Vinciotti (University of Trento, Italy), Associate professor.
  
  
• Ernst C. Wit (Università della Svizzera Lugano, Switzerland) Professor of Statistics and Data Science.

Some video links

Can we use network models to shed new light on global arms trading?
Using statistical network models to understand the driving forces in arms trading in the last decades and today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxzJ9RFSCJ0

Can we improve social support for the elderly during COVID-19?
This research highlights which groups of elderly people have either non-existent or insufficient social support during the COVID-19 pandemic and are therefore more vulnerable. For these elderly people, sustainable care policy planning and crisis intervention planning should be organised especially for future waves of the coronavirus and other pandemics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tIWuBvA6NI

Normal or not? How to detect anomalies in networks
Complex interactions such as financial transactions or links between computers can often be visualised as networks. Anomalies in such networks may indicate deviant behaviour. How can we detect such anomalies?
In this video we shall encounter a statistical test called Monte Carlo test to address this issue. The Monte Carlo test can also be applied in many other scenarios.
https://sciani.com/portfolio/normal-or-not-how-to-detect-anomalies-in-networks/

Sometimes, correlation does imply causation
You often hear “correlation does not imply causation” in order to warn the listener about spurious relationships that may be observed in everyday life. The number of homicides seems to correlate with ice cream sales, but clearly this is not a causal relationship. Given that all we can see in real life are mere correlations, can we ever be sure of causality? This video will describe a network inspired definition of causality in order to derive a method, known as the PC algorithm, to detect causal interactions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoLxQfi194c

Some online seminars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1iSbsQjWxo Prof. Gesine Reinert, Turing Institute Talk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha32LmYLmrU Prof. Gesine Reinert, Master Class "Inference of Networks

https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/20160727093010001 Prof. Gesine Reinert, "Estimating the number of communities in a network

https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/20161214111512001 Dr. Veronica Vinciotti, "Sparse Gaussian graphical models for dynamic gene regulatory networks

https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/20160824113012301 Prof. Ernst Wit, "Network inference in genomics

https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/20160715113012001 Prof. Neil Friel, "Properties of Latent Variable Network Models

https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/20160728091510152 Dr. Alberto Caimo, "Bayesian ERGMs -- computational and modelling challenges

https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/20160825104011001 Dr. Pariya Behrouzi, "Detecting Epistatic Selection in the Genome of RILs via a latent Gaussian Copula Graphical Model

https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/20160826090009401 Prof. Alberto Roverato, "The Networked Partial Correlation and its Application to the Analysis of Genetic Interactions

https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/20160826094010201 Dr. Reza Mohammadi, "Bayesian modelling of Dupuytren disease using Gaussian copula graphical models

https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/20160826102010401 Dr. Silvia Fierascu, "Applying network science to political problems. A conceptual and analytical framework for understanding and predicting corruption risks in business-political networks

https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/20160826133014101 Dr. Ben Parker, "Optimal Design of Experiments on Connected Units with Application to Social Networks

https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/20161212093010301 Prof. Tom Snijders, "Continuous-time statistical models for network panel data

https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/20161212111512001 Prof. Eric Kolazyk, "Dynamic causal networks with multi-scale temporal structure

https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/20161213093010301 Prof. Tom Britton, "A network epidemic model with preventive rewiring: comparative analysis of the initial phase

https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/20161213160016451 Prof. Stephane Robin, "Detecting change-points in the structure of a network: Exact Bayesian inference

https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/20161215160016451 Dr. Catherine Matias, "Statistical clustering of temporal networks through a dynamic stochastic block model

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHTGY8VCinY Prof. Niel Lawrence, "Deep Probabilistic Modelling with Gaussian Processes ostnet.webhosting.rug.nl/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=pub:online

The 63rd ISI WSC 2021 will be held 11-16 July as a virtual conference. The WSC theme “Statistics and Data Science for a Better World” highlights the developments and contributions of statistics and data science in various domains of application that impact all aspects of life. The Chair of the Scientific Programme Committee (SPC), Nalini Ravishanker, invites the statistical community to submit proposals for Invited Paper Sessions (IPS). Please use the Submission System.

The 63rd ISI WSC 2021 will host talks and presentations on a wide variety of topics, with the overall goal of presenting a balanced programme that provides a sense of the current state and future direction of statistics, data science and their applications. The programme will span sectors of practice including academia, business, industry, government and official statistics along with the breadth of ISI and Associations affiliated with ISI. Topics include but are not limited to official statistics, survey statistics, environmental statistics, business and industrial applications of statistics, mathematical statistics, probability, statistics and data science education, statistical literacy and statistical computing and data visualization.

Accepted Invited Sessions will be held either live-streamed or pre-recorded, details will be given later. The pre-recorded sessions will have a time to have live interactions with attendees. The SPC will determine which IPS will be offered in which modality, but all submissions should be willing to do either.

Live-streamed

Real-time (synchronous) sessions will be scheduled each day. This time block is necessarily limited, given the desire to reach out to all time zones. It will last two and a half hours from 14:00 to 16:30 Central European Summer Time. The relevant times are:

Pre-recorded

Asynchronous, pre-recorded sessions will be released each day during the conference. Opportunities to interact with presenters either live or via chat will be available.

Invited Paper Sessions

IPS proposals must meet the following requirements and include the following information:

1. Session Title - description
2. Connection to ISI, Associations or Committees
3. Organiser – name, affiliation, contact information
4. Session Chair – name, affiliation, contact information
5. For each speaker,
   1. Name, affiliation, contact information
   2. Title of talk (if appropriate – not needed for panel)
   3. Abstract

The best proposals will include participants that reflect the diversity of ISI including age, gender and country/region. Strong proposals will have speakers confirming their willingness to participate should the programme be accepted. Note that speakers can only speak in one session.

When submitting a proposal, you should indicate to which of the ISI Associations your session is related:

1. If you specify more than one Association, choose a primary one and your proposal will be first reviewed by that Association under the guidance of its representative on theSPC.
2. If you think that your proposal does not relate to any ISI Association, you may choose ISI as the primaryassociation.
3. Proposals will be reviewed by the SPC on a competitivebasis.

Just a quick reminder: each proposal should include a brief description and justification for the proposed session and a list of presenters and discussants who have agreed to participate. The selection criteria will take into account scientific quality, impact, and overall diversity.

IPS Selection Criteria 

The SPC will select IPS to ensure that the WSC programme:

1. is interesting, of high quality, with sessions that emphasize innovative ideas, approaches and/or applications to problems ofimportance;
2. reflects a balance of Organisers / Presenters / Discussants from around theworld and a diversity of participants with respect to age, gender and statisticalinterests.

Invited Papers historically have been and will continue to be a key feature of a successful WSC. We look forward to receiving your proposals!

Please read the Guidelines for Session Organisers before submitting your proposal.
Please submit your IPS proposal before 15 November 2020.

General enquiries about the Scientific Programme should be directed to Nalini Ravishanker at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..