AULISSDA
Anchor University Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Statistical Science and Data Analysis, Lagos, Nigeria
LISA 2020 Network Full Member: 2017

Vision: To become the center of excellence in statistical literacy in South-West Nigeria.

Mission: To upgrade the statistics and data science literacy of staff and students in Africa through courses, consulting, and collaboration.

Application of statistical knowledge has become imperative in virtually all areas of human endeavor. This is because decisions in many areas of modern societies are based on the collection and analysis of empirical data. Statistical consulting involves a variety of powerful methods and tools to collect, analyze and interpret such data. Without the proper application of statistical methods, the risk increases that data collection suffers from additional costs and efforts; the analysis of research efforts may give suboptimal results and eventually wrong decisions can be taken. The development of various computer software and advances in statistical methodology has brought significant improvement to the field of statistics. In line with modern trends as it is being done in the developed countries, it is not enough to have only hot-shot technical and methodological skills without practical skills. It is also necessary to have the non-technical skills to communicate our technical knowledge effectively enough so that it can be implemented. Therefore, the inclusion of a statistical collaboration center or laboratory in a university environment is inevitable in order to provide various services including giving support in forming research questions, planning of studies, data collection, data management, statistical programming and scientific writing.

More so, many of today’s societal problems are extremely complex and require collaborative efforts between statisticians and researchers in the Sciences, Arts, Engineering, Social Sciences, Humanities and so on. Many more problems require learning from data using (sometimes simple) statistical techniques unknown to the researchers interested in the problem. It is in the light of the above that Anchor University Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Statistical Science and Data Analysis (AULISSDA) was inaugurated on September 4, 2017 when the Global Director of LISA 2020 (www.lisa2020.org) visited Anchor University Lagos (AUL). This visit was arranged by the LISA 2020 Engagement Ambassador to Africa (also the First LISA Fellow), Dr. O.O. Awe who had helped in creating similar stat labs at OAU and UI before coming to AUL. As the First LISA Fellow, Dr. Awe had received previous training at Virginia Tech and University of Pennsylvania, USA. The creation of AULISSDA is strategic and significant in the annals of history of Anchor University because it is the seventh globally, and third in Nigeria among the worldwide statistics laboratories affiliated with the LISA 2020 Program of University of Colorado Boulder, USA.  The goal of LISA 2020 is to build research capacity in developing countries. The benefits of the lab are numerous. These include, among others:

• Improving statistical literacy among AUL researchers. 

• Income generation for the University.

• Accelerating research development by offering expert statistical advice to researchers in our university.

• Helping to increase the number of Masters & Ph.Ds among the staff. 

• Aiding  AUL researchers to publish quality papers in high impact journals 

• Analyzing data for various research grants, funding proposals, and projects 

• Educating students and researchers through regular short 
courses on modern statistical packages and software 

• Causing increased enrollment of students into our Mathematical Sciences program 

• Encouraging collaboration between statisticians and researchers from other disciplines 

• Keeping abreast with current research trends and best practices 

• Improving our web metric ranking

• Collaborations with statisticians will help members of the academic staff publish good 
papers in high impact journals. This will help the promotion cases, raise the university’s profile, and increase the impact of AUL researchers in the academic community.