About us:

This one week meeting is jointly organized by the Department of Statistics, University of Pretoria and Data Science Institute UHasselt and aims to bring together academic staff and researchers from academia, research institutes and government organizations from both South and North regions. Our aim is to provide a platform for a discussion about both scientific and development topics and to initiate South-South and North-South interactions  and engagement around these topics.​ The meeting in Kampala is organized a part of VLIR-UOS ICP connect project and VLIR-UOS ITP project eR-BioStat..  

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The VLIR-UOS International Training Program: the eR-BioStat ITP - Development of local E-learning platforms in (bio)statistics

Biostatistics and Statistics are the building stones which are essential for scientific research work. Without good and wide knowledge of Biostatistics and Statistics (from here onward we use (bio)statistics), the research output is typically of low quality and could be misleading.  Many capacity building projects are devoted to capacity building of (bio)statistics via the development of new education programs in the South. However, typically, after the end of the project and the project budget, it becomes difficult to maintain the project deliverables and to maintain the education program developed within the project in the same quality level. The eR-BioStat ITP project is developed to overcome this problem and to ensure a sustainable and robust education program for (bio)statistics in the south by providing an E-learning platform which offers (free) education materials, ready to be used in the class, in (bio)statistics. Further, within the eR-BioStat ITP project we train the participants from three countries, Kenya, Ethiopia and South Africa (12 local universities in total) to develop their local version of the >eR-BioStat platform and in this way we will increase ownership and sustainability of the project outcome in the South after the end of the project. The output of the eR-BioStat ITP project can be easily transferred to local universities that are not included in the current project.

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Department of Statistics, University of Pretoria:

The Department of Statistics (https://www.up.ac.za/statistics) in the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences (NAS) at the University of Pretoria is a dynamic, research-oriented entity recognised as the largest statistics department in South Africa, serving over 8,000 students annually in both NAS and the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences (EMS) at the University. It is the country's leading department in theoretical and applied statistics. The department has the largest postgraduate student population in South Africa, with a PhD research program in Statistics focusing on theoretical and applied aspects. Several active research groups within the department are dedicated to various specialisations, including model-based clustering and mixture modelling, biostatistics, distribution theory, time series analysis, spatial statistics, and statistics education. Notable highlights of the department include:

1. The South African National Research Council (NRF) funds hosting the South African Research Chair Initiative (SARCHI) in Biostatistics within the department, fostering research in Biostatistics Methodology and Application.

2. Organising and hosting the annual International Symposium on Modern Statistics and Biostatistics since 2021.

3.  The department is one of eight partners in the Sub-Saharan Africa Consortium for Advanced Biostatistics (SSACAB) training and research program funded by the Wellcome Trust and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO).

4. The department hosts the development of a framework for the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) inaugural Global Volunteer Index by a UN agency, funded by UNV.

The Statistics Industry Hub creates opportunities for postgraduate students to be co-mentored by industry partners while completing their postgraduate studies. This initiative has played a pivotal role in placing students at some of South Africa’s established and innovative companies, including Liberty Life, The Foschini Group, African Bank, and MobiLife.

 

ICP connect & South meeting:

The ICP Master of Statistics in UHasselt awards scholarships to a select group of outstanding individuals to study under the Master of Statistics and Data Science programme at Hasselt University. It also involves initiatives in South countries including Mozambique, South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia, Philippines, and Indonesia, among others. Previous collaborations have led to the inception of a Center for Statistics in Mozambique and MSc programmes in (Bio)statistics and/or epidemiology in Cuba and Ethiopia. The main aim of the ICP programme is to continue our efforts in elevating our beneficiaries, including individual scholars and partner institutions, to international competitiveness.

 The ICP South Workshop is a yearly activity co-organized by the ICP Master of Statistics programme and a partner institution in the South. This is organized in a selected South country to facilitate knowledge exchange between different institutions among institutions/universities from the South and Hasselt University. 

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