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THE HISTORY OF THE WORKSHOPS


1986   Innsbruck, Austria 1987   Perugia, Italy
1988   Vienna, Austria 1989   Trento, Italy proceedings IWSM04
1990   Toulouse, France proceedings IWSM05 1991   Utrecht, The Netherlands proceedings IWSM06
1992   Munich, Germany proceedings IWSM07 1993   Leuven, Belgium proceedings IWSM08
1994   Exeter, UK proceedings IWSM09 1995   Innsbruck, Austria proceedings IWSM10
1996   Orvieto, Italy proceedings IWSM11 1997   Biel/Bienne, Switzerland proceedings IWSM12
1998   New Orleans, USA proceedings IWSM13 1999   Graz, Austria proceedings IWSM14
2000   Bilbao, Spain proceedings IWSM15 2001   Odense, Denmark proceedings IWSM16
2002   Chania, Greece proceedings IWSM17 2003   Leuven, Belgium proceedings IWSM18
2004   Florence, Italy proceedings IWSM19 2005   Sydney, Australia proceedings IWSM20
2006   Galway, Ireland proceedings IWSM21 2007   Barcelona, Spain proceedings IWSM21
2008   Utrecht, The Netherlands proceedings IWSM23 2009   Ithaca, NY, USA
2010   Glasgow, Scotland 2011   not yet decided

The International Workshop on Statistical Modelling has been held for almost two decades. The workshop arose out of two GLIM conferences in the U.K. in London (1982) and Lancaster (1985), and from a number of short courses organised by Murray Aitkin and held at Lancaster in the early 1980s, which attracted many European statisticians interested in Generalised Linear Modelling. At this time, a group of Austrian, Italian and British statisticians saw both the opportunity and the need for a regular meeting of Europeans that would focus on various aspects of statistical modelling in an informal workshop environment, specifically aimed at applied statistics, but also including theoretical developments and computational methods.

The spirit of the workshop has always concentrated on papers that are both motivated by real life data and also which make novel contributions to the subject. Statistical modelling is an important cornerstone in many scientific disciplines, and the workshop has consistently provided a rich environment for cross-fertilization of ideas from different statistical disciplines. The workshop has brought together scientists from different nationalities with different backgrounds and experience, and has thus always promoted contributions from students early in their careers and allowed time for discussion and interchange between junior and senior scientists.

The inaugural workshop in this series took place in Innsbruck in 1986, and brought together a small but enthusiastic group of thirty European statisticians interested in statistical modelling. The programme concentrated on GLMs and was characterised by a number of features - a friendly and supportive academic atmosphere, tutorial sessions and invited speakers presenting new developments in statistical modelling, and a very well organised social programme. The academic programme allowed plenty of time for presentation and for discussion, and made available copies of all papers beforehand.

Since this first meeting, the workshop has grown substantially, and now regularly attracts over 150 participants. There has been a strong effort made to bring each new meeting to a different European country. The scope of the workshop is now much broader, reflecting the growth in the subject of statistical modelling over ten years. The elements of the first workshop, however, are still present, and participants always find the meetings relevant and stimulating. The number of submitted papers has grown with the number of participants, but successful contributed papers still receive a relatively generous 30 minutes of presentation time, and invited speakers one hour. Parallel sessions have been avoided, allowing everyone both to learn and to contribute. Poster sessions are now held, and software demonstrations and displays are organised. One change is that the workshops have become more international in nature.

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