Blogs

Report - Statistical Challenges in the Agri-Environment Sector

posted 12-05-2025
This event took place on the 19 th September, 2025 at the University of Warwick and was attended by 25 people. The event was jointly organised by the BIR and NABES (a UK network of statisticians working in the Agricultural, Biological and Environmental Sciences). Attendees consisted of both academics and professional statisticians representing a range of organisations (BioSS, Defra, JNCC, BGS, ...

Obituary - Professor C David Kemp

posted 11-27-2025
It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Professor C David Kemp. Professor C David Kemp, who was Secretary of the British Region of the IBS from1961 to 1970 and was Regional President for 1977-78, died on 26th October at the age of 98. After National Service, David was offered the opportunity of studying Physics at Birmingham University but chose instead to study Mathematics ...

Winner of the YBA 2025

posted 10-23-2025
It is with great pleasure to announce that the winner of the 2025 Young Biometrician Award is Dr Ioannis Rotous for his paper "A Pólya Tree modelling framework for batch-mark data". This paper presents a novel Bayesian nonparametric framework for analysing batch-mark data, where animals are marked in groups rather than uniquely, using a Pólya Tree prior on a latent entry–exit grid. The method ...

Report – Young-ISA Webinar Joint with the BIR on Statistical Ecology

posted 09-22-2025
Report – Young-ISA Webinar Joint with the BIR Committee on Statistical Ecology Gabriel Rodrigues Palma The online event took place on Thursday, April 10th, 2025, as a collaboration between the Young Irish Statistical Association (Young-ISA) and the British and Irish Region (BIR) of the International Biometric Society. The event ran smoothly and offered valuable insights into the field ...

Report - The Art of Statistical Consultancy including Presidential Address

posted 05-16-2025
The Art of Statistical Consultancy including Presidential Address Kirsty Hassall The afternoon event took place on 3rd December, 2024 in the lovely de Hardy room of the London Mathematical Society building in Russell Square. We had a hybrid setup which had a few hitches for which I can only apologise. The meeting was attended by approximately 20 well-fed people. Andrew Mead, Head of Statistics ...

Prof. Peter Armitage (1924-2024)

posted 02-19-2024
We are deeply saddened to learn that Prof. Peter Armitage – former President and Honorary Life Member of the International Biometric Society – died last week, aged 99 years. We remember Peter for the depth and breadth of his statistical insight, the kindness and generosity of his dealings with scientific colleagues, and not least for the selflessness of his major retirement project: the Encyclopedia ...

Young Biometrician Award 2023

posted 09-07-2023
2023 Young Biometrician Award We are happy to announce that the winner of the 2023 Young Biometrician Award is Dr Oliver Crook , a Florence Nightingale Fellow (Senior Research Associate) in the Department of Statistics, University of Oxford, for his paper “Semi-Supervised Nonparametric Bayesian Modelling of Spatial Proteomics” (The Annals of Applied Statistics, 2022). The panel felt that Oliver’s ...

Young Biometrician Award 2023

posted 05-12-2023
The Young Biometrician Award of the British and Irish Region of the International Biometric Society and the Fisher Memorial Trust The British and Irish Region of the International Biometric Society, jointly with the Fisher Memorial Trust, award a prize every two years for young biometricians who are members of the BIR. Young biometricians are defined as those within 5 years of completing full-time ...

Report from "It's About Time" (incl. 2022 Presidential Address & AGM)

posted 02-15-2023
On 29 November 2022, just over twenty statisticians gathered at the Royal Statistical Society from all corners of Britain and Ireland for the first in-person meeting of our regional biometricians in nearly three years. The meeting began with the society AGM where, after receiving reports from the officers, the most notable item of business was an update of our bylaws to include student representation ...

John Addy's report from IBC 2022

posted 09-29-2022
The British and Irish Region once again joined forces with the Fisher Memorial Trust (FMT) to offer bursaries to support attendance at the International Biometric Conference at Riga (IBC 2022). John Addy, a bursary recipient, has kindly sent to us a report to share his experience: The 75th International Biometric Conference (IBC) was held in the beautiful and historic Latvian capital Riga in 2022. ...

Meeting Report - Variational Bayes - 3rd May 2022

posted 05-12-2022
On 3 rd May 2022, the British and Irish Region of the Biometric Society hosted an online meeting on Variational Bayes. Variational Bayes is a computational method that allows scalable Bayesian inference that can be used as an alternative to the more commonly used Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods. The meeting consisted of an introduction to Variational Bayes given in the morning by Dr David Hughes ...

Ruth King receives RSS Barnett Award

posted 03-14-2022
Delighted to share the good news that our immediate past-President, Prof. Ruth King, has received the Royal Statistical Society's Barnett Award in recognition of her exceptional work in statistical ecology. The tribute also acknowledges her many contributions to statistics and statisticians more broadly, including her distinguished leadership of the British and Irish Region of the International Biometric ...

Prof. Sir David Cox (1924–2022)

posted 01-20-2022
Many of you will have heard through other channels the very sad news of the death of Sir David Cox earlier this week. David was an Honorary Life Member of the International Biometric Society, and a longtime friend of our British and Irish Region. Asked at a conference what he worked on, David replied, "Oh, a little bit of this, and a little bit of that". This charming understatement highlights two ...

Advanced Topics in Spatial Sampling

posted 04-12-2021
A series of events on the topic of advanced spatial sampling was held on the 24 th March 2021. The day was split into two parts with the morning dedicated to a workshop on Spatial sampling: some principles and practicalities and was run by Professor Murray Lark and the afternoon dedicated to a series of three webinars by Professor Janine Illian, Dr Peter Henrys and Dr Eleni Matechou. Both events were ...

8th Channel Network Conference, 7-9 April 2021

posted 10-20-2020
The 8th Channel Network Conference will take place at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers in Paris, France from 7th to 9th of April 2021. There will be two keynote speakers: Jeanine Houwing-Duistermaat (University of Leeds, School of Mathematics, Statistics Institute), Mathias Drton ( Technical University of Munich, Department of Mathematics), and three short courses: ...

YBA 2019 winner announced

posted 01-06-2019
Young Biometrician Award The British and Irish Region of the International Biometric Society (IBS-BIR), jointly with the Fisher Memorial Trust, award a prize every two years for young biometricians who are members of the British and Irish Region of the International Biometric Society. The award recognises the research of one paper published, or accepted for publication, in a refereed journal. This ...

David Finney Lecture

posted 01-05-2019
The British and Irish Region of the International Biometric Society is sponsoring the 3rd David Finney Lecture. Professor Ian Dryden will be giving the lecture on 10th June 2019 at the Bayes Centre, Edinburgh 6-8pm. Registration is free, but required for catering purposes. Please register here. Lecture Title: Object Data Driven Discovery. Abstract: Object data analysis is an important ...

CNC 2019: Abstract submissions extended

posted 01-04-2019
The call for abstracts is now open until 31st March for CNC 2019. Further details of the conference can be found here. The conference organisers are please to announce a range of prizes available to both best poster presentation and best student oral presentation. Bursaries are available to members of the BIR, with application details found here.

Bursaries for CNC 2019 - Apply Now

posted 01-03-2019
The BIR and Fisher Memorial Trust are offering 5 bursaries of up to £300 each for career-young biometricians to attend the 7th Channel Network Conference, July 10-12, at Rothamsted. Applications should consist of a cover letter, a one-page CV, and the abstract submitted to the conference website. In the cover letter, please make your case for support, stating clearly any other financial support you ...

Nominations for Young Biometrician Award 2019 open

posted 01-02-2019
The British and Irish Region of the International Biometric Society (IBS-BIR), jointly with the Fisher Memorial Trust, award a prize every two years for young biometricians who are members of the British and Irish Region of the International Biometric Society. Young biometricians are defined as those within 5 years of completing full-time education (excluding career breaks); for a PhD the end date ...