Invitation to the colloquium / News from the conference
Dear colleagues,
We cordially invite you to the 67th Biometric Colloquium “Scenes from Biostatistics” of the German Region of the International Biometric Society (IBS-DR). It will take place online from March 14-17, 2021 and is organized by the Institute of Biostatistics and Clinical Research of the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster.
Our goal is to make this meeting, albeit online, as close as possible to an on-site meeting. There will be four parallel sessions. The scientific program will include live discussions. Two keynotes, one public lecture, 18 invited speakers, four panel discussions, three tutorials, the popular Statistics in Practice, 105 contributed talks, 12 posters, and ten award-winning young-statisticians talks represent the full breadth of our field.
To create a live conference atmosphere, we have built a virtual conference building for you in Gather.Town. In addition to the direct link to the presentations, you will have access to the conference rooms via a personal virtual avatar. If the avatars meet, picture and sound optionally switch on and you can talk as in real life in twos, threes or more. Comfortable couch corners, small lounges, game tables, and bars invite you to chat.
In addition to the exciting scientific program, there will be a number of additional online events. These include, for example, a wine tasting, two get-togethers, various meetings with the IBS-DR, and the Münster panoramas – let us surprise you!
All of this is new territory for us. We are curious and, above all, excited. Bring patience and forbearance. An internet connection is not always as stable as the statics of a conference building.
We wish all of you a successful and stimulating colloquium. Be there! Meet the more than 400 colleagues who have already registered. The conference is only a mouse click away. We look forward to seeing you and your avatars.
On behalf of the local organization team of the Institute of Biostatistics and Clinical Research of the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster
Andreas Faldum
Conference President
Welcome by the President of the German Region of the IBS
Dear colleagues!
The Biometric Colloquium is always a special event of the German Region of the International Biometric Society (IBS-DR) whose scientific and social program is of great importance for biostatistics in Germany, Europe and beyond. Especially in the present time, characterized by COVID-19, in which the empirically based life sciences enjoy a great deal of public attention, biometrics also plays a special role. It is therefore all the more important that we biostatisticians also have the opportunity in spring 2021 to discuss our findings and points of view. In 2021, the Biometric Colloquium will set completely new accents. Due to the increasing COVID-19 infection figures since September 2020, a conference in attendance is unfortunately not possible and the local organizers together with the IBS-DR have decided in favour of a pure online conference. The special feature of this conference is on the one hand the extensive scientific program, which is, among other things, with more than 15 invited speakers, three tutorials on modern biometric topics and a current lecture for the public, not inferior to any of the past colloquia. On the other hand, it offers numerous events on highly topical subjects, such as statistics in the era of Corona and for platform trials, which have now become even more important. There will also be several sessions on causal inference (including estimands for clinical studies) and on completely new topics, such as interpretable machine learning and statistics in nursing sciences. Many other current topics will also be addressed in sessions with invited speakers. There will also be the opportunity for participants to present their own research in live sessions or posters, both with the possibility for scientific discussions. I would like to thank the Scientific Program Committee and our working groups for the composition and organization of the scientific program. In addition to the extensive scientific program, there will also be the opportunity for personal exchange, e.g. by creating a virtual meeting place where people can meet and spontaneously exchange ideas online in small groups. The social evening will take the form of an online wine tasting. My special thanks go to Andreas Faldum and his team for the creative and very committed conference organization. I wish all participants an exciting scientific and social event.
With best regards,
Werner Brannath
President of the IBS-DR