BIPS Director Elected President of the International Biometric Society

It was an election with "excellent participation," according to the IBS. The winner was Iris Pigeot. In 2023, she will serve the IBS as President-Elect. Then, on Jan. 1, 2024, she will automatically advance to the office of president for a two-year term, followed by a one-year term as outgoing president.

"I am very pleased with the election and the trust it has placed in me," says Iris Pigeot. She adds, "During my term, I want to improve our external communications to make our results more accessible to a wider audience. We need to raise our voice when it comes to putting policy-making on a solid scientific footing. In this context, post-usable research data and sound research data management are important prerequisites, and I will step up my efforts to promote a culture shift among scientists toward research data sharing."

The IBS is an international, academic professional society. It is dedicated to the development and application of statistical and mathematical theories and methods in the life sciences. The society was founded in 1947 in Massachusetts, USA.

Iris Pigeot has been director of BIPS since March 2004 and has headed the Biometrics and Computing Department there since 2001. Also since 2001, she has been professor of "Statistics with a focus on biometrics and methods of epidemiology" at the University of Bremen. Her research focuses on the use of secondary data in drug safety research, primary prevention especially of childhood obesity, as well as statistical and data protection issues related to the re-use of research data, distributed data analyses, linking of different data sets, and the development of research data infrastructures.

She is active in various committees, e.g. member of the Review Board Medicine of the German Research Foundation and Associate Editor of the journal Statistics in Medicine. Iris Pigeot has received several awards for her scholarship and teaching, e.g. for outstanding PhD supervision in 2019 (University of Bremen). In addition, in 2020, the University of Rzeszów, Poland, awarded her the Grand Medal of the University for her services to the scientific and didactic development of the staff of the Faculty of Medicine.

BIPS - Health research in the service of people

The population is at the center of our research. As an epidemiological research institute, we see our task in identifying causes of health disorders and developing new concepts for disease prevention. Our research provides the basis for social decisions. It informs the population about health risks and contributes to a healthy living environment.

BIPS is a member of the Leibniz Association, which comprises 97 independent research institutes. The orientation of Leibniz institutes ranges from natural, engineering and environmental sciences to economics, spatial and social sciences and the humanities. Leibniz Institutes are dedicated to socially, economically and ecologically relevant issues. Due to their national importance, the federal and state governments jointly fund the institutes of the Leibniz Association. The Leibniz institutes employ around 20,000 people, including 10,000 scientists. The total budget of the institutes is more than 1.9 billion euros.