LISA 2020: Building Statistics Capacity in Developing Countries by Training Statisticians to Communicate and Collaborate with Nonstatisticians

• Activity Number: 284
• Type: Invited
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 6, 2013 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistical Consulting
• Author(s): Eric A. Vance*+
• Companies: LISA-Virginia Tech
• Keywords: statistical consulting ; statistical collaboration ; communication ; capacity building ; developing countries ; statistical consulting centers

Abstract

The Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Statistical Analysis (LISA) at Virginia Tech is partnering with universities and individuals around the world to create a network of 20 new statistical collaboration laboratories in developing countries by 2020. This plan is called "LISA 2020" and consists of four steps for each new laboratory.

Step 1: A technically trained statistician from a developing country is educated and trained in LISA at Virginia Tech to communicate and collaborate with non-statisticians.

Step 2: This newly trained collaborative statistician returns to their home university to create a statistical collaboration lab based on their experience in LISA.

Step 3: Collaborative statisticians from the LISA 2020 network visit the new lab to help create, build, or sustain it and provide additional training in statistical methods and effective collaboration.

Step 4: Repeat steps 1 or 3 as necessary to maintain high quality in providing local researchers, government officials, the private sector, and NGOs with statistical advice and expertise from local statisticians who understand the contexts of the problems and are experts in providing real solutions to real-world problems.