Over the past two days, I watched some events at the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham (if on TV). Partly due to the heat that hugely reduced my range of options. And partly in reminiscence of the 2024 Championships in Rome. Among the amazing feats, Jimmy Gressier’s lead on most of the 5,000m, if not particularly strategic with Jakob Ingebrigsten in his flow, and Gressier’s sprint in the 10,000m. And Nadia Battocletti winning again both 5,000m and 10,000m races, very tactically with a extraordinary burst on the last lap. And Aurélien Quinion finishing third on the marathon race walk, under 3h, so exhausted he turned back after the finish line. And Gianmarco Tamberi repeating his antics and gold medal in the high jump (reaching to his family rather the Italian President this time!). And the much more serene victory of Yaroslava Mahuchikh, the current World and Olympic champion in the high jump. Слава Україні!
Archive for UK
Магучіх синій та золотий [B’ham European Athletics 2026]
Posted in pictures, Running with tags 10000m, Birmingham, Britain, Слава Україні, European Athletics Championships, French TV, high jump, marathon race walk, Rome, UK, Ukraine, Walsall on August 17, 2026 by xi'ana day in London
Posted in pictures, Statistics, Travel, University life with tags Appeal of 18 June, Bayesian Adversarial Privacy, Charles de Gaulle, day trip, Department of Mathematics, Eurostar, Kings College London, London, privacy, seminar, statistics seminar, Strand, UK on June 18, 2026 by xi'an
[fa]rage against the mankind
Posted in Books, Kids, Statistics, Travel with tags anti-immigrant mob, Brexit, Brexit Party, Britain, councillors, England, Enoch Powell, Europe, far-right, far-right ideology, local elections, Nigel Farage, rage against the machine, The Guardian, UK, UK politics, UKIP, xenophobia on May 11, 2026 by xi'an
Nature likes official statistics
Posted in Books, Statistics, University life with tags Argentina, budget cuts, Demographic and Health Survey Program, Gates Foundation, India, INSEE, Malakoff, National Statistician, Nature, Office for National Statistics, official statistics, ONS, tribune, Trump administration, UK, United Nations, US politics, USA on April 5, 2026 by xi'an
Nature is (rightly!) concerned about official statistics around the World and ran a feature article on the topic in its issue of 12 March 2026. It stresses the multiple reasons for supporting a sound, independent, trustworthy national statistic office. The article explores the issues with four national statistic bureaux, for the US, the UK, India, and Argentina. (As my whole career has been associated with the French official statistics institute, INSEE, first as a student, then as a researcher, I would have liked to hear some external views on this institute, albei methinks the situation is not as dire here, despite a permanent reduction in staff over the past decade, to the point the landmark INSEE building in Malakoff has now been dismantled.)
The issue with the US system is predictably mixing political interference à la Trump and budget cuts again à la Trump. Referring to a 2025 ASA report. Longitudinal surveys have been terminated after running 30 years. While preserving its famous independence, the UK Office for National Statistics is facing mistrust from the public that in turn reduces the reliability of its labour survey, with a response rate of 13% in 2023! The UK Government has responded by creating a National Statistician…. Concerning India, well-known for its love of official statistics, the concern is again with the government interventions against NSC, and Argentina suffers from the same woes, Milei refusing an update of the way inflation is calculated by the national institute NDEC, leading to the departure of the current director (whose remote predecessor was put on trial by an earlier government!)
“Decisions based on incomplete or incorrect knowledge are invariably bad, even harmful. That is why the statistics that governments collect need to be as accurate and as verifiable as possible.”
In what appears (now?) as a common trend in Nature, a tribune on the same topic appeared in the following edition of 19 March 2026. With the call to “fix surveys”, in part battered by systemic underfunding and sapped by low answer rates. And the somewhat paradoxical complaint that private philanthropies like the Gates Foundation is supporting less worldwide surveys like the Demographic and Health Survey Program, which should be the responsibility of governments.
ERC Starting Grants 2025
Posted in Kids, Travel, University life with tags #ERCSyG, applied mathematics, data science, ERC, ERC Starting Grant, EU grants, EU Horizon Europe programme, EU-Israel Association Agreement, Europe, European Commission, European Research Council, European Union, France, French politics, Horizon Europe, panel, Paris Sciences et Lettres, PE1, PSL, pure mathematics, Switzerland, UK, Università Bocconi, University of Warwick, Ursula von der Leyen on September 13, 2025 by xi'an
Last week, the ERC announced the winners of the Starting Grant campaign for 2025. Congrats to all recipients!
I am no longer a member of the PE1 (maths & data sciences) panel, hence did not contribute in the least to this selection. I noticed very few statistics and data science in the list (albeit obviously not hinting at any correlation with the previous sentence!), except for a project on computational stats. There is neither no one from my departments, even tough Warwick received one grant, nor from my research circles. The re-emergence of the UK as a strong proponent among the nations submitting projects is clear, while Italian candidates remain highly successful (incl. Bocconi!).
Since the EU States did not manage to unanimously agree on suspending the Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement last summer, despite Israel’s breach of human rights on the Gaza strip, there are also ten Israeli projects supported by EU on this round. (Unless the latest announcement of further sanctions by President Ursula von der Leyen suspending bilateral support to Israel does cover this financing.)
