Seed Center of Statistical Consulting

Project background

Statistical methods and data analytics are of central importance for almost all scientific disciplines and application-oriented projects today. Nevertheless, universities often lack a central point of contact that offers interdisciplinary advice on statistical issues. Students, doctoral candidates and researchers often face complex methodological challenges in data analysis without receiving sufficient support. The "Seed Center of Statistical Consulting" project aims to close this gap and establish an institutionalized statistical consulting service that encompasses all university departments and transfer projects.

Project objective

The project aims to create a central facility to provide advice on issues relating to statistics, machine/statistical learning and data analytics in general. The aim is to systematically localize, analyse, classify and document problems and needs at the university and in transfer projects. Suitable consulting scenarios, cooperation options and forms of communication are to be developed that take into account all target groups (students, doctoral candidates, professors, transfer projects) regardless of their previous methodological knowledge.

Project procedure

The project procedure is divided into five successive phases:

1. needs analysis (05.2025-10.2025): Conducting surveys and systematic data collection on basic statistical methods, software, statistical modeling and possible collaborations in all target groups.

2. Development of consulting and teaching concepts (11.2025-03.2026): Development of target group-oriented concepts taking into account existing basic knowledge, capacity planning and design of software training courses.

3. Creation of counseling and teaching materials (04.2026-09.2026): Organization of workshops, development of target group-oriented media and teaching forms with corresponding quality assurance measures.

4. Implementation of consulting and teaching services (10.2026-07.2027): Implementation of consultations with accompanying feedback, continuous optimizations and adjusted capacity planning.

5. Regular operation (08.2027-04.2028): Establishment of a sustainable concept for the permanent operation of the consultation center with statistical analysis of interdisciplinary collaboration.

Innovation

The innovative aspect of the SCSC project lies in the systematic combination of teaching, research and practice in the field of statistics. Unlike traditional statistical advice centers, which often work in isolation, students are actively involved in real projects here. This creates a threefold benefit:

1. for the university: improving the quality of scientific work and research projects through sound statistical methodology.

2. for students: Practical training on real data sets and issues, which significantly increases their professional skills.

3. For companies and external partners: access to up-to-date methodological expertise and innovative approaches to solving their data analysis problems.

The interdisciplinary focus also enables knowledge transfer between different subject areas and promotes innovative approaches to solutions at the interfaces of different disciplines.