Numbers of the future Conference
When: 3-5 December 2025 Where: University of Liverpool, UK (also online for those who cannot travel) Registration: £100 (£50 online) Abstract submission: https://forms.gle/c1p1Jcikve1cjQET8 Conference website: https://sites.google.com/view/numbersofthefuture Taglines: https://sites.google.com/view/numbersofthefuture/taglines
Overview Next-generation science and engineering will require data and calculations to be reliable, trackable, reusable, comprehensively described and linked, while also maintaining security and protecting private information. Quantitative assessments important in science, engineering, industry, commerce, finance, and forensics increasingly make use of critical data and calculations, sensitive or confidential records, incomplete or bad data, intrusively collected personal information, and tracked data and calculations. This use requires collating and propagating ancillary information that justifies conclusions, tracks evidence, and permits reanalysis. This conference will consider several essential questions: § What details are needed when collecting and sharing observational data and calculations? § How can we be sure that empirical effort produces meaningful, correct, and logically complete measurements? § What changes or augmentations are needed in empirical work to ensure that estimates and calculations are trackable and checkable? § What structures and processes can make scientific statements trustworthy, beyond relying on the integrity of scientists as individuals? § How can these be automated to be natural and least burdensome? § How can we radically reduce the need to 'clean' data sets? § What provisions can guarantee that the information is secure and uncorrupted but also accessible and reusable. § How can we avoid wasting or losing observations?
Topics bad data, reusable data, symbolic data, trustworthiness, literate computing, data interoperability, responsible analysis, empiricist responsibility, linguistics of evidentiality, anonymisation techniques, numbers in crisis situations, findable and recoverable data, protecting personal information, self-documentation for data sets, evidence and justification tracing, uncertainty from expert elicitations, responsible simulation and modelling, ethical dimensions of numbers and data, security and confidentiality in data sharing, decision making under justification tracking, provenance and calculation stream histories, enriched and structured next-gen commenting, dimension and units checking and propagation, dangers and limitations in certification by analysis, extended research credits for non-author contributions, what to do about numbers already recorded in data sets, automating uncertainty propagation and sensitivity analysis, and conventions for comprehensive data description (NUSAP, FAIR, etc.).
Themes
Reproducible and open science
Humane algorithms
Data sharing
Verification
Who should attend The conference will bring together engineers with computer scientists, statisticians and data analysts, linguists, legal scholars, and policy analysts from across industrial, academic, and governmental institutions who must handle mission-critical data and calculations, sensitive or personal records, incomplete or bad data, or tracked data and calculations important in science, engineering, industry, commerce, finance, and forensics. Using such data requires the collation and propagation of ancillary information that justifies the quantitative calculations and assessments in which they are used. This multidisciplinary workshop is intended to foster cross-fertilization and creativity.
Conference agenda The conference will begin Wednesday 3rd December at 2pm. A detailed agenda will be updated soon on the conference website.
Wednesday (afternoon) Thursday Friday
Registration Registration will open soon. In the meantime you can submit the abstract of your presentation at https://forms.gle/c1p1Jcikve1cjQET8.
£100 fee for in-person registration will cover: § Attendance § Lunch and refreshment breaks, and § Conference dinner.
On-line attendance has a £50 fee. Additional tickets (£50 for accompanying persons includes the conference dinner, and social events) may be purchased at registration.
Important dates 31st October: deadline for abstract submission 1st November: registration opens 14th November: notification of acceptance of presentation 3rd December: conference January: special issue open
Keynote speakers Arnald Puy<https://www.arnaldpuy.com/> (University of Birmingham) Ivan Oransky<https://retractionwatch.com/meet-the-retraction-watch-staff/about/> (Retraction Watch) TBC
Journal special issue Selected abstracts/presentations from the conference will be invited for submission to a special issue of the International Journal of Approximate Reasoning.
Conference venue The conference will be held in person at the University of Liverpool in the <https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/central-teaching-hub/> Central Teaching Hub<https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/central-teaching-hub/> (What3Words ///basin.causes.select<https://what3words.com/basin.causes.select>). The presentations will also be live streamed for registrants via Zoom.
Organizers The conference is hosted by the Institute for Risk and Uncertainty at the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom.
Co-chairs Marco de Angelis<https://www.strath.ac.uk/staff/de_angelismarcodr/>, University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom Scott Ferson<https://sites.google.com/site/scottfersonsite/>, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom Kari Sentz<https://laro.lanl.gov/esploro/profile/kari_sentz/output/all?institution=01LA...>, Los Alamos National Laboratory, United States
Conference Secretariat Andrea Jones +44 0151 7944837 a.m.jones@liverpool.ac.uk<mailto:a.m.jones@liverpool.ac.uk>
Steering Committee Ekaterina Auer, Hochschule Wismar, Germany Anas Batou, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom Michael Beer, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany Conal Brown, TÜV Rheinland Industrial Services, United Kingdom Mark Burgman, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, United States Leslie Yu Chen, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom Leonardo Christo, Agência Nacional do Petróleo, Gás Natural e Biocombustíveis, Brasil Silvio Funtowicz, Universitetet i Bergen, Norway Ander Gray, Université de Technologie de Compiègne, France Ioanna Ioannou, University College London, United Kingdom Vladik Kreinovich, University of Texas at El Paso, United States Adolphus Lye, National University of Singapore, Singapore Enrique Miralles-Dolz, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, United States Jeremy NIcholls, Social Value International, United Kingdom William L. Oberkampf, United States Jason O'Rawe, Etsy, United States Edoardo Patelli, University of Strathclyde, Scotland Jerome Ravetz, University of Oxford, United Kingdom Sebastian Timme, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom
Local Organizing Committee Ioanna Ioannou Nicholas Gray Leslie Yu Chen Conal Brown
To know more about hotels, transportation to reach Liverpool and related ideas see the conference site: https://sites.google.com/view/numbersofthefuture.