New Statistics unit brings research into everyday lives

Cutting-edge research in statistics is being transferred into our everyday lives, by the brand-new Applied Statistics and Risk Unit (AS&RU) at the University of Warwick - which was officially opened yesterday. The aim of AS&RU is to use academic statistical research to solve some of the world's major problems - from healthcare and disease epidemics to the stock markets and traffic congestion. The Warwick Department of Statistics has many specialist research groups, which affect multiple areas of life - including: statistical analysis (brain image analysis, epidemics, archaeological data, cell biology, patient survival) decision support for complex environments (e.g. nuclear accidents, forensic science) mathematical finance (stock market analysis, economics) robust approaches to big data (making the most of customer and patient data), probability (including applications to traffic) computational statistics and development of new statistical methods. In addition, several members of staff are also Fellows of the Alan Turing Institute , which draws together academics in the five top UK Universities to work with industry and government in foundational Data Science research. The official launch of AS&RU took place on 27 March 2017, and its director is Dr Martine Barons. Martine explains the importance of ensuring that academic research is communicated to government, industry and business - and then applied to real life situations: "There can be a significant time lag between cutting-edge research developments and turning those into useful solutions for business, government and industry.