People doing research

The Victorian Centre for Biostatistics (ViCBiostat) is a Centre of Research Excellence in biostatistics, led by researchers at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Monash University and the University of Melbourne

Biostatistics is a discipline of great importance to health research, encompassing the vital methods needed to design sound health research studies and lead the analysis and interpretation of data arising from such studies. In the modern era, health research is data-intensive and statistical expertise is critical to extracting knowledge from the growing volume of data being collected.

However, the discipline of biostatistics is relatively underdeveloped in Australia, lacking major centres of sufficient critical mass to foster the development of early career statisticians, and in particular to support advanced training and discipline leadership through methodological research programs.

The Centre is led by Professor John Carlin and was established in 2012 by a Centre of Research Excellence grant from the National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC), with funding for five years.

It is now a collaborative network with research supported by a range of grants and centre activities funded by income from short courses and workshops.

The Centre’s focus is on methodological research for high-level training of professional biostatisticians, within a framework that emphasises active collaboration in substantive research with the ultimate aim of improving the population’s health through high-quality research.

At the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, ViCBiostat activity is embedded within the Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics (CEBU), which provides essential input to a wide range of research projects and groups at the Melbourne Children’s campus.

Our publications

Publications are available on the VicBiostat website

More information

For more information about ViCBiostat and an outline of our research: