MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
Dear ISBA members, I hope you all had a relaxing summer break and have started the new academic year with renewed energy. For the ISBA community, this was certainly a special summer, with the World Meeting in Nagoya providing a memorable start.
As anticipated in the June issue of the Bulletin, Nagoya 2026 became the largest in-person World Meeting in ISBA history, with almost 900 registered participants. More importantly, it was a wonderful week of science, conversations, old friendships, and new connections. The success of the meeting was the result of an extraordinary collective effort. My heartfelt thanks go to the Local Organizing Committee, led by Kazuhiko Kakamu and Makoto Takahashi, and to the Scientific Committee, led by Sameer Deshpande. The Scientific Committee and the Committee on Named Lectures deserve special recognition for putting together an outstanding scientific program, with wonderful speakers delivering a series of exciting and inspiring talks throughout the week. As always in ISBA, a great deal of work was also carried out by those who served on prize committees and in many other roles before and during the meeting. Many thanks also to all the participants who traveled from all over the world and contributed to making it such a special conference.
The banquet on Friday evening provided a fitting conclusion to the week. It began with the traditional sake ceremony and a toast by our Past President, Michele Guindani, and continued with the celebration of ISBA award recipients and our newly elected Fellows. You can read more about these recognitions in the contributions by Igor Prünster, Maria De Iorio, Natalia Bochkina, and Botond Szabó in this issue of the Bulletin. And beyond the science and awards, I suspect that many of us will also miss the warm hospitality of our Japanese colleagues and, in my case at least, the sushi in Nagoya!
The 2026 World Meeting may have only just ended, but ISBA is already looking ahead. Our next World Meeting will take place in Milwaukee on June 18-23, 2028, and both the ISBA Program Council and the Local Organizing Committee, led by Rodney Sparapani, are already at work.
At the General Assembly in Nagoya, Rod gave us a first glimpse of Milwaukee and the plans for the 2028 meeting. We also announced that the 2030 World Meeting will be held in Valencia, Spain, on July 1–6. The Local Organizing Committee is led by Anabel Forte, who presented the plans for that edition and offered an introduction to Valencia and the meeting. Two exciting World Meetings are therefore already ahead of us, and we will soon start looking even further into the future with a call for proposals for the 2032 World Meeting.
The General Assembly also gave us an opportunity to reflect on our membership, currently above 1,100, and to take stock of our Sections. BayesComp, j-ISBA, and BNP are currently among the largest, though the picture across Sections is quite diverse. One message I took away from the discussion is that more regular interaction between ISBA leadership and the Sections would be useful. Our Sections are one of the main engines of scientific activity within the Society, and maintaining a strong connection with them will remain an important priority. In Nagoya, members of the ISBA Executive Committee also met with Section leaders, and I would like to see meetings of this kind take place more regularly in the future.
This issue of the Bulletin also includes an ISBA statement on compulsory Article Processing Charges (APCs). The statement addresses a broader concern about publishing models in which authors are required to pay compulsory APCs, with the recent developments at Statistics and Computing providing a concrete example particularly relevant to our community. Indeed, a substantial number of Associate Editors of the journal decided to step down in response to the publisher’s decision to impose APCs on papers submitted after July 1, 2026. You can find more details in Robin Ryder’s blog. ISBA strongly supports open access, but we also believe that removing barriers for readers should not create new ones for authors. Our own flagship journal, Bayesian Analysis, shows that open access can be provided without compulsory publication charges for authors.
Speaking of Bayesian Analysis, there is more good news. By the end of August, the journal had already received almost as many submissions as during the whole of 2025. Despite this substantial increase in workload, turnaround times have remained below four months. This is an impressive achievement, and I would like to thank the Editor, Co-Editors, Associate Editors, and reviewers for the time and energy they devote to the journal. You can read more about these developments in Igor Prünster’s column in this issue.
Let me also remind you that the ISBA elections will open soon. The slates of candidates will shortly be announced, together with candidate profiles to help you make an informed choice. Elections are an important moment for our community: the colleagues we elect will help shape the scientific activities and priorities of ISBA over the coming years, so I strongly encourage everyone to participate. Only current ISBA members can vote, so this is also a good opportunity to check your membership status and renew if necessary through the dedicated ISBA website. And, while you are there, you may even want to take care of your 2027 membership a little early! As we speak of membership, please encourage your students, collaborators and colleagues to join our Society.
Finally, I am pleased to welcome Luis Enrique Nieto-Barajas as a new member of the ISBA Committee on Constitution and Bylaws. Many thanks to Luis for agreeing to serve. The work of committees such as this one may be less visible than a World Meeting or an award ceremony, but it is essential to the good functioning of our Society.
Nagoya reminded us once again how much energy there is in the ISBA community. I hope you enjoy this issue of the Bulletin, and I look forward to seeing many of you at our upcoming events around the world.
STATEMENT ON COMPULSORY ARTICLE PROCESSING CHARGES
The International Society for Bayesian Analysis (ISBA) is concerned by the growing adoption of publishing models in which authors are required to pay compulsory Article Processing Charges (APCs). While open access removes barriers to accessing scientific knowledge, mandatory APCs may create financial barriers to publication by shifting the cost from readers to authors.
Such policies may disproportionately affect early-career researchers, scholars at institutions with limited resources, and researchers in countries where dedicated funding for APCs is unavailable. They are incompatible with the principle that scientific work should be assessed on its quality and significance, not on an author’s ability to pay. While waiver schemes can partially mitigate these concerns, they do not provide a fully predictable or sustainable solution. Eligibility requirements and application procedures create uncertainty for authors as to whether publication costs will ultimately be covered. While valuable, therefore, waivers cannot by themselves ensure equitable opportunities to publish.
Recent developments at Statistics and Computing, a journal of particular importance to the Bayesian and computational statistics communities, have further highlighted these concerns. Following the publisher’s decision to introduce a compulsory APC-based model, a substantial number of editors resigned from its Editorial Board. Although this episode concerns a single journal, it illustrates a broader challenge facing scientific publishing.
ISBA strongly supports the broad dissemination of scientific knowledge and welcomes sustainable initiatives that make research openly accessible. This commitment is reflected in the Society’s flagship journal, Bayesian Analysis, which makes all published articles freely available without imposing mandatory APCs on authors. This model demonstrates that open access and equitable opportunities to publish need not be competing objectives.
ISBA encourages publishers, editors, learned societies, funding agencies, and the broader research community to develop sustainable publishing models that preserve the benefits of open access without allowing the availability of funding to determine who can publish.
Finally, ISBA wishes to acknowledge the extraordinary voluntary contribution of editors, associate editors, and reviewers, whose service is fundamental to maintaining the quality and integrity of scientific publishing. Their commitment represents one of the greatest strengths of our research community and should be accompanied by publishing policies that promote, rather than hinder, broad participation in scientific communication.
ISBA Executive Committee and Board of Directors
FROM THE EDITOR
Hello ISBA members, and welcome to the third issue of the ISBA Bulletin for 2026!
As usual, I will keep this very brief: there is plenty of news and information waiting for you in this issue. Be sure not to miss the latest updates from ISBA officers, and join us in celebrating this year’s award winners and newly elected ISBA Fellows. Also, take a close look at the report from the BayesAI section, the reports from some of the wonderful events that took place this summer, and the many exciting events coming up in the next few months.
As always, many thanks to everyone who contributed to this issue. ISBA community, enjoy!
FROM THE PROGRAM COUNCIL
(Co)-sponsorship & Endorsement Requests. If you are planning a meeting and would like to request financial sponsorship (or co-sponsorship) or non-financial endorsement from ISBA, please submit your request to the Program Council at program-council@bayesian.org. Detailed information on how to submit requests for sponsorship or endorsement is available here.
UPDATES FROM BA
The strong growth in submissions to Bayesian Analysis has continued throughout 2026: by the end of August, we had already received 282 submissions, compared with 327 during the whole of 2025, itself a record year for the journal.
Despite this substantial increase in volume, our streak of sending decisions within four months of submission is still alive: we have now cleared all papers submitted through May 31, 2026. Maintaining timely and consistent turnaround times while preserving the constructive and thorough feedback that is part of the Bayesian Analysis tradition is becoming increasingly demanding. A big thank you, once again, to our Co-Editors, Associate Editors, and Referees for their dedication and extraordinary efforts for making this possible.
Lindley Prize
The 2024 Lindley Prize was awarded during the banquet at the 2026 ISBA World Meeting in Nagoya. Congratulations to Jim Griffin, whose paper “Expressing and Visualizing Model Uncertainty in Bayesian Variable Selection Using Cartesian Credible Sets” won the prize, and to Changwoo Lee, Alessandro Zito, Huiyan Sang, and David Dunson, whose paper “Logistic-Beta Processes for Dependent Random Probabilities with Beta Marginals” received an honorable mention. I am also very grateful to all members of the Lindley Prize Committee for their careful and thoughtful work.
With one edition of the prize concluded, it is already time to look ahead to the next one. Papers presented at the 2026 ISBA World Meeting in Nagoya can be considered for the 2026 Lindley Prize, provided they are submitted to Bayesian Analysis by September 30, 2026. Authors should indicate in their cover letter that the paper is being submitted for consideration for the Lindley Prize and provide the identification number of the session in which the work was presented. Let me also add that those who have already submitted an eligible paper without indicating the prize can still enter by contacting me by the same deadline and providing the relevant session information.
Special Discussion Paper
It is a great pleasure to announce a special discussion paper in Bayesian Analysis: “Dependent Dirichlet Processes” by Steven N. MacEachern, his original 2000 manuscript. The paper is accompanied by “A Modern Perspective on Dependent Dirichlet Processes” by Steven N. MacEachern, Juhee Lee, and Hang J. Kim. Together, the two contributions combine the original formulation of what has become a highly influential class of Bayesian nonparametric models with a contemporary perspective on its development and impact.
We now welcome contributed discussions. Contributions may address the original DDP paper, the accompanying contemporary perspective, or more broadly the development, evolution, and future directions of dependent Dirichlet processes and related models. Discussions should be no more than two pages long and prepared using the BA style files, available through the Bayesian Analysis author resources on Project Euclid. Please submit your discussion via EJMS by October 15, 2026, selecting “Contributed Discussion” as the manuscript type and indicating that the discussion refers to MacEachern’s “Dependent Dirichlet Processes” (BA1610).
September Issue and Advance Publication
The September issue of Bayesian Analysis has just appeared, featuring 19 papers. Its somewhat larger size reflects our continuing effort to shorten the time between Advance Publication and appearance in a regular issue. I encourage you to explore these contributions, as well as the many excellent papers recently accepted and now available in the Advance Publication section.
FROM THE PRIZE COMMITTEE
This year, the ISBA Awards Ceremony was held in Nagoya, Japan during 2026 ISBA World Meeting from 28 June to 3 July 2026. The ISBA Awards were announced at the ISBA banquet on July 3rd. The event was attended by hundreds of colleagues, who celebrated the different achievements of young and not so young statisticians in our Bayesian community.
On behalf of ISBA prize committee, we want to acknowledge all the intense work for our award subcommittee members. Without their hard work and dedication of their personal time, our committee work would have not been completed so smoothly. Thus, we want to thank them again for their great contribution to our community.
Regarding the awards bestowed during the Award Ceremony, we would like to congratulate the following awardees:
2025 Savage Award in the Category of Theory and Methods
Winner: Filippo Ascolani for his thesis entitled “Hierarchical Structures in Bayesian Statistics” (Supervisors: Antonio Lijoi and Igor Prünster).
Honorable Mention: Samhita Pal for her thesis entitled “Bayesian inference in high-dimensional regression models using sparse projection posterior” (Supervisor: Subhasis Ghoshal).
Finalists: Hyunwoong Chang for his thesis “Convergence analysis of Markov chain Monte Carlo methods for model selection problems” (Supervisors: Quan Zhou and Suojin Wang), and Yuren Zhou for his thesis “Bayesian deep discrete latent structures” (Supervisor: David Dunson).
On behalf of the ISBA Prize Committee, we are very grateful to Athanasios Kottas, who chaired the 2025 Savage Award sub-committee for Theory and Methods, and all colleagues who were a part of it: Federico Camerlenghi, Fabrizio Leisen, Feng Liang, David Nott, and Fernando Quintana.
2025 Savage Award in the Category of Applied Methodology
Winner: Jorge Castillo-Mateo for his thesis entitled “Stochastic Models for the Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Extremes, Applications to the Analysis of Climate Change” (Supervisor: Ana C. Cebrián Guajardo and Alan E. Gelfand).
Honorable Mention: Michael Schwob for his thesis entitled “Bayesian Hierarchical Models for Dependent Ecological Data” (Supervisor: Mevin B. Hooten).
Finalists: Brandon Carter for his thesis “Bayesian Spatial Models for Discrete Data: Methodological Advances with Applications in Urban Sociology” (Supervisor: Catherine A. Calder) and Changwoo Lee for his thesis “Probabilistic Clustering Methods for Complex Data and Related Topics” (Supervisor: Huiyan Sang).
On behalf of the ISBA Prize Committee, we are very grateful to Jeff Miller, who chaired the 2025 Savage Award sub-committee for Applied Methodology, and all colleagues who were a part of it: Veera Baladandayuthapani, Noirrit Kiran Chandra, Daniele Durante, Claire Gormley, Yang Ni, Yasuhiro Omori, Garritt Page, and Yixin Wang.
2025 Mitchell Prize
Winner: Michael Pearce, and Elena A. Erosheva for their paper “Modeling Preferences: A Bayesian Mixture of Finite Mixtures for Rankings and Ratings,” published in Journal of the American Statistical Association (Theory and Methods) 120 (551): 1621–1632, 2025.
Honorable Mentions: Moumita Chakraborty, Veerabhadran Baladandayuthapani, Anindya Bhadra, Min Jin Ha (Honorable Mention) for their paper “Bayesian Robust Learning in Chain Graph Models for Integrative Pharmacogenomics,” published in Annals of Applied Statistics, 18(3), 2145–2172, 2024. Wei Jin, Yang Ni, Jane O’Halloran, Amanda B. Spence, Leah H. Rubin, and Yanxun Xu (Honorable Mention) for their paper, “A Bayesian Decision Framework for Optimizing Sequential Combination Antiretroviral Therapy in People with HIV,” published in Biometrics 79 (4): 2196–2208, 2023.
On behalf of the ISBA Prize Committee, we are very grateful to Sara Wade, who chaired the 2025 Mitchell Prize sub-committee, and all colleagues who were a part of it: Mike Daniels, David Dunson, Jim Smith, Mike So, and Valeria Vitelli.
2024 Lindley Prize
Winner: Jim Griffin for his paper “Expressing and Visualizing Model Uncertainty in Bayesian Variable Selection Using Cartesian Credible Sets”, published in Bayesian Analysis 20(4), 1371–1397, 2025.
Honorable Mention: Changwoo J. Lee, Alessandro Zito, Huiyan Sang, David B. Dunson for their paper entitled “Logistic-Beta Processes for Dependent Random Probabilities with Beta Marginals”, published in Bayesian Analysis 20(4): 1345-1369, 2025.
On behalf of the ISBA Prize Committee, we are very grateful to Igor Prünster, who chaired the 2024 Lindley Prize sub-committee and all colleagues who were a part of it: David Frazier, Ryan Giordano, Jonathan Huggins, Nadja Klein, Li Ma, Minerva Mukhopadhyay, Ilsang Ohn, and Yixin Wang.
2025 DeGroot Prize
Winner: Raquel Prado, Marco A. R. Ferreira, and Mike West for their book “Time Series Modeling, Computation, and Inference, Second Edition”
On behalf of the ISBA Prize Committee, we are very grateful to Botond Szabo, who chaired the 2025 DeGroot Prize sub-committee and all colleagues who were part of it: Marina Vannucci, Hedibert Lopes, Richard Gill, Toshiaki Watanabe, and Dipak Dey.
2026 Zellner Medal
Winner: Kerrie Mengersen for her outstanding contributions to Bayesian computation, methodology, and applied modeling, and for her transformative service and leadership within the International Society for Bayesian Analysis and the Australasian statistics community, making a lasting impact on both the science and the culture of Bayesian statistics.
Winner: Sylvia Richardson for her numerous and deep contributions to Bayesian statistics and biostatistics throughout her career, for her substantial service to ISBA including her presidency of ISBA in 2005 that saw the launch of Bayesian Analysis, and for her leadership of the RSS Covid‐19 Task Force, which provided rational and crucial support during the pandemic.
NEW ISBA FELLOWS
The ISBA Fellowship honours members who have made outstanding contributions to the statistical community, through research and publications, teaching, professional service, or service to the Society. Fellows are elected biennially from nominations submitted through an open process, with selections made by an eight-member committee of former ISBA Fellows.
This year, the ISBA Fellows Committee comprised Sudipto Banerjee, Maria De Iorio, Sylvia Frühwirth-Schnatter, Michele Guindani, Antonio Lijoi, Rosangela Helena Loschi, Li Ma and Scott Sisson.
In 2026, ten new ISBA Fellows were elected. The new Fellows were announced at the ISBA World Meeting in Nagoya, together with citations recognizing their individual contributions. Their names and citations are presented below.
Warmest congratulations to all the newly elected ISBA Fellows!
David Banks (Professor of the Practice of Statistical Science at Duke University): For foundational and sustained contributions to Bayesian decision and risk analysis, broad-ranging applications of statistics in societally important areas, and a substantial record of leadership in the profession, in particular for the Section on Industrial Statistics.
Roberto Casarin (Professor of Econometrics, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice): For his seminal contributions to Bayesian time-series analysis, econometrics, and computation; and for his leadership and service to ISBA in various capacities, including organizing ISBA meetings.
Nicolas Chopin (Professor of Data Sciences at ENSAE, Institut Polytechnique de Paris): For groundbreaking contributions to computational Bayesian statistics, for sustained and dedicated mentorship, and for long-term and distinguished editorial service.
Dani Gamerman (Emeritus Professor, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro): For his influential contributions to the early development and dissemination of MCMC methods for complex hierarchical, dynamic and spatial models and for his visionary leadership in establishing a strong Bayesian community in Brazil that has inspired and shaped multiple generations of statisticians.
Robert B. Gramacy (Professor, Virginia Tech): For his pioneering work on Bayesian modeling and statistical computing, particularly in the context of computer experiments and surrogate modeling; for his continued and impactful service to ISBA as a member of the editorial board of Bayesian Analysis and of the Executive Council.
Matthias Katzfuss (Professor, Department of Statistics, University of Wisconsin–Madison): For his groundbreaking developments in scalable Bayesian methods for high-dimensional spatial and spatio-temporal data that bridge the gap between Bayesian theory and large-scale environmental applications, and for his significant service to ISBA and the Bayesian community.
Long Nguyen (Professor of Statistics, University of Michigan): For profound contributions to Bayesian statistics and machine learning, particularly in advancing Bayesian nonparametric theory; for substantial service within the community; and for dedicated and highly influential mentorship.
Yasuhiro Omori (Professor of Economics, University of Tokyo): For his outstanding contributions to theoretical foundations and statistical computation in Bayesian statistics and econometrics, for his exceptional service to ISBA, including his leadership in organizing major Bayesian events, and for his dedicated mentorship of young researchers.
Debajyoti Sinha (Hobbs Endowed Chair of Statistics, Department of Statistics, Florida State University, USA): For his seminal research in the development of Bayesian theory and methods for survival analysis and longitudinal studies, and for his transformative influence on Bayesian biostatistics through the creation of innovative modeling frameworks for complex clinical data science, and for his service to the international Bayesian community.
Christopher K. Wikle (Curators’ Distinguished Professor, Department of Statistics and Data Science, University of Missouri): For outstanding research in Bayesian statistics with application to spatio-temporal inference in geophysics and ecology, for leadership in implementing neural networks in hierarchical statistical models, for exceptional mentoring and teaching, and for sustained editorial services to professional societies.
JUNIOR ISBA
BAYSM 2027: dates announced!
We are pleased to confirm that the next edition of the j-ISBA conference BAYSM will be held on April 12–16, 2027. The conference will take place entirely online, with an extremely low registration fee for j-ISBA members, ensuring accessibility for early career researchers from all over the world. Abstract submissions will open in October: stay tuned for news.
Organized sessions at conferences
We are organizing sessions at various conferences happening this fall, winter and spring:
International Day of Women in Statistics and Data Science (IDWSDS) 2026, held online on October 6, 2026. The speakers will be Federica Zoe Ricci (Swarthmore College), Louise Alamichel (Université Clermont Auvergne), Martina Contisciani (Goethe University Frankfurt), and Jie Jian (University of Chicago).
“New developments in Bayesian statistics: a j-ISBA sponsored session” at the International Indian Statistical Association (IISA) 2026, December 26-30, Varanasi. The speakers will be Vaidehi Dixit (University of Nottingham), Arka Banerjee (Indian Institute of Science Bangalore), and Miheer Dewaskar (University of New Mexico). Chair: Beniamino Hadj-Amar (University of South Carolina).
“Contributions from junior Bayesians: a j-ISBA session” at the LACSC-TIES-EnviBayes-EnvrASA 2026, December 7-11, in Mexico City. The speakers will be Carlos Carrillo-Gallegos (Columbia University), Marco Gallegos (University of Toronto), and Dafne Zorzetto (Georgia State University).
“Advances in Bayesian Nonparametric and Latent Variable Modeling: Recent Contributions from j-ISBA Members” at the VIII Latin American Meeting on Bayesian Statistics (COBAL) and XVIII Brazilian Meeting of Bayesian Statistics (EBEB), to be held in Búzios, Rio de Janeiro, from March 1 to 5, 2027. The session will feature three talks on flexible Bayesian methods for complex data, presented by j-ISBA members from different parts of the world: Santiago Marin (Australian National University), Maria Fernanda Pintado (CUNEF Madrid), and Ingrid Johana Guevara Romero (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile).
NEWS FROM THE BAYESIAN AI SECTION
Sinead Williamson, Julyan Arbel, Vincent Fortuin, Theodore Papamarkou, Sara Wade
We are delighted to announce the launch of the new Bayesian AI (BayesAI) Section of ISBA. The Section brings together the Bayesian statistics and artificial intelligence communities to promote the research, application, and dissemination of Bayesian ideas in modern machine learning and AI.
BayesAI will support interactions across the two communities through workshops, conference sessions, webinars, short courses, software development, and support for early-career researchers. Scientifically, we aim to encourage work on scaling Bayesian methods to contemporary AI models, while also exploring the role of Bayesian principles beyond inference, including reasoning, decision-making, and online learning.
The 2026 BayesAI board consists of Sinead Williamson (Chair), Julyan Arbel (Chair Elect), Vincent Fortuin (Program Chair), Theodore Papamarkou (Treasurer), and Sara Wade (Secretary). Visit the BayesAI-ISBA website to learn more and join the Section.
Bayesian Deep Learning course materials
At the 2026 ISBA World Meeting in Nagoya, Julyan Arbel, Sara Wade, and Vincent Fortuin presented a short course on Bayesian Deep Learning, aimed at both Bayesians new to deep learning and machine learning researchers interested in Bayesian principles.
The course covers Bayesian neural networks, approximate inference, priors, symmetries and non-identifiability, marginal likelihood, singular learning theory, and scalable methods, together with a hands-on NumPyro practical comparing MAP, variational inference, and MCMC.
All course materials are available, including slides, YouTube videos, and practical materials.
Bayesian Deep Learning book
We are also pleased to announce the community-authored book Handbook of Bayesian Deep Learning. The pdf and Jupyter Book versions are freely available online.
The book provides a broad introduction to bringing Bayesian inference to modern deep learning. Its ten parts span Monte Carlo methods, Laplace approximations, variational inference, ensembles, kernel and Gaussian-process methods, neural-network priors, symmetries and non-identifiability, scalable inference, applications and software, and emerging research directions.
The book is intended both as an introduction to the field and as a reference for current research. Proceeds will support BayesAI activities, including travel support and prizes for researchers.
Join us in Edinburgh: BayesAI 2026
The inaugural meeting of the BayesAI Section will take place in Edinburgh on 26–30 October 2026, as part of the third workshop on Rethinking the Role of Bayesianism in the Age of Modern AI, following earlier meetings at Dagstuhl in 2024 and MBZUAI in 2025.
The workshop will ask what role Bayesian thinking should play in the next generation of AI. It will bring together researchers working across Bayesian statistics and machine learning to discuss uncertainty, reliability, robustness, scalable probabilistic reasoning, generative models, and other emerging directions. The programme will feature invited talks, discussions, lightning talks, and posters, with postgraduate students and early-career researchers especially encouraged to participate.
We hope BayesAI will provide an active home within ISBA for researchers working at the interface of Bayesian statistics and modern AI. Join the Section, and we hope to see you in Edinburgh in October!
NEWS FROM THE WORLD
Reports from events and conferences
European Seminar on Bayesian Econometrics (ESOBE) 2026 @Luiss, Roma
by the ESOBE Board
The 16th European Seminar on Bayesian Econometrics (ESOBE) was held at Luiss University in Rome, on 27-28 August (website). Over two days, the program combined keynote lectures by M. Conceptión Ausín (Carlos III, Madrid), Radu Craiu (Toronto) and Petros Dellaportas (UCL and Athens), oral contributed sessions, dedicated sessions for PhD candidates and early-career researchers, and two lunchtime poster sessions. Topics ranged from Bayesian computation and time-series modelling to forecasting, finance, causal inference and machine learning. The breadth of contributions and sustained engagement across formats confirmed the vitality of the ESOBE community.
The 50+ participants were diverse in origin and expertise, representing 14 countries across Europe, North America (Canada and the United States), and Asia (China and Japan), and including academic scholars as well as researchers from US and European central banks. More than half were PhD candidates or early-career researchers, whose participation was supported in part by travel grants from ISBA and its EFaB section. The dedicated sessions and poster slots gave early-career researchers substantial visibility and opportunities for direct exchange with established academics and practitioners. More broadly, the lunches and conference dinner at Villa Ada encouraged informal interaction among participants, helping to strengthen professional networks and the wider ESOBE community.
We would like to thank all participants for their contributions and for making the conference such an engaging event. The ESOBE Board warmly thanks Matteo Iacopini, Alessia Caponera, Marta Catalano and Marco Perone Pacifico for organizing a perfect event. We look forward to meeting again at the next ESOBE 2027 conference in Rotterdam.
Bayesian Nonparametric Networking Workshop 2026 @University of Seoul, Seoul
by Joungyoun Kim
