I just came back home from Mexico City after IAOS-ISI 2024, the meeting of IAOS joint with the first ISI Regional Statistical Conference in Latin America. We had a great conference and courses, very well organised by INEGI and the Scientific Programme Committee (SPC). Thanks go to Graciela Marquez (INEGI President), Jūratė Petrauskienė and Manuel Mendoza (SPC Co-Chairs) and their teams. Another thanks go to ITAM (Mendoza’s university), AME (Mexican Statistical Association) who organised, jointly with ISI, a one day course on “Simulation for Decision Making”, held at ITAM by Jorge de la Vega Gongora (another great thanks to him!).
I could talk a lot about the conference in Mexico, but I prefer to present you two proposals, approved by the ISI Executive Committee which met in Mexico City after the conference.
- Within the ISI Academy umbrella we are now launching IAMP (temporary name standing for ISI Academy Mentoring Programme), a pilot programme which plans to support ISI members willing to teach in Master’s programmes involving ISI members in developing countries. It is a one-year experiment, and we would like to evaluate the results in one year time. Here is how it works (this year is very informal!):
- Qualified ISI members can apply as possible lecturers, specifying the courses they would be interested in teaching.
- ISI members from Low or Lower Middle Income countries, according to World Bank, involved in a Master’s Course, can submit a request for a lecturer for one of their regular courses from Fall (northern hemisphere)/ Spring (southern hemisphere) 2024 to Spring (North)/Fall (South) 2025.
- The lecturer would teach such course for 3 weeks, at least 30 hours of class + possible exams, and should be also willing to present her/his work in seminars and discuss with students and faculty about her/his and their research interests.
- The host institution will provide a local teacher, for courses longer than 30 hours, who will coordinate syllabus and classes with the visiting lecturer.
- ISI will pay up to 3,500 euros for travel (economy class) and lodging for stays of 3 weeks. No stipend will be provided, and no other costs will be included. ISI will have no further legal and financial responsibility.
- ISI will pay at most 4 lecturers. There could be more if some lecturers will use their own funds and/or ISI members will donate to the programme when renewing their membership.
- It is the lecturer’s responsibility to have a proper health insurance and check documents and formalities to visit the hosting countries.
- Lecturers are expected to behave according to the ISI ethical principles and provide high level, inspiring classes.
- ISI members, including ISI Associations’ member, can send their short CVs (if interested in being a lecturer) or details on the Master’s Course (if interested in hosting a lecturer), including the courses either to be offered or requested. This year the information should be sent to the ISI President-Elect, Fabrizio Ruggeri, at [email protected] by 30 June 2024.
- ISI is willing to increase its activities at local level, promoting courses, workshops, webinars, sessions at national events, etc. (there is no limit to the creativity of ISI members!). It is important that ISI gets more known among statisticians and that members will be more involved in ISI and its Association. ISI encourages its and Associations’ members who have in mind a CONCRETE idea to be realised and are willing to work on it, to contact the ISI President-Elect, Fabrizio Ruggeri, at [email protected]. The activities need to be self-funded and organised by volunteers. The activities should be respectful of the ISI ethical principles and high quality of its deliverables. Activities to be presented under the ISI Academy umbrella are very welcome!
I hope to receive excellent proposals. Please avoid generic statements of interest, and each proposal should state clearly who is doing what, where and when!
