Page 97 - SAMRC Annual Report 2023-24

PERFORMANCE INFORMATION

International Symposium on current trends in modeling and software development in Data science.

Equitable capacity development The sessions were attended by the leadership of
for empowering communities Statistics departments from various universities
including University of Venda; University of Zululand;
All staff in the Biostatistics Research Unit participated University of KwaZulu-Natal and University of
in a two-day workshop, led by Executive Coach South Africa.
Zelda Burger, focused on several personal and team
development topics including the Enneagram of The unit has strengthened skills in several
personality, resilience and self-assurance. Biostatistics statistical topics including machine learning,
and data science are critical and scarce skills in the cluster randomised trials and joint modelling. In
country as well as the broader sub-Saharan African addition to capacity development initiatives aimed
region. at statisticians, the BRU provides statistics training
to health researchers via a one-week course. The
To ensure sustainable biostatistics capacity unit hosted an Introduction to Clinical Trials and
development, the integration of open-source software Biostatistics course in March 2024 in Durban,
in teaching and learning is crucial. The unit serves South Africa. There were 30 researchers and clinicians
as a research partner in the VLIR-UOS International who attended the training. Lastly, 8 staff within the
Training Programme project, entitled "eR-BioStat unit are currently registered for PhD degrees (six in
ITP – Development of local E-learning platforms in statistics and two in nutrition).
(bio)statistics." As the first activity of the project, the
unit hosted the "International symposium on current Science for creating a
trends in modelling and software development
in Data Science" from 20th – 23rd February 2024, healthier society
jointly with the Data Science Institute at Hasselt BRU participated in media briefings and interviews
University (Belgium), at the SAMRC Conference following the release of The Sixth South African
Centre in Cape Town. The symposium included two National HIV Prevalence, Incidence, and Behaviour
workshops: ‘The eR-Biostat Platform for teaching and Survey (SABSSM VI). These engagements led to the
learning statistics at both the undergraduate and release of the key findings of the survey in several
postgraduate level’; and ‘Data analysis, modelling national and local newspapers, as well as television
and reporting using R, R studio and R markdown’. and radio.

SAMRC ANNUAL REPOR T 2023-24 95