From April 15th to 17th, EURANDOM marked its 25th anniversary with a special event. More than 100 participants gathered in Eindhoven for this occasion. The event provided ample opportunity for reflection on the past and anticipation for the future, balancing scientific content with social activities.
The event kicked off on Monday with a warm welcome from Sem Borst, the current director. Following this, the scientific program started with a keynote lecture by Peter Bühlmann, followed by several talks centered around the theme “Latest Theoretical Developments for Neural Networks”. After a break for lunch, Hansjörg Albrecher delivered a second keynote, followed by three talks within the session “Collective Behavior of Interacting Stochastic Systems”. The final session featured a workshop titled “Future Workshop Formats in a Changing World”, exploring the question of which formats can effectively achieve the primary goals of a workshop: fostering connections, exploring new collaborations and inspiring participants. To conclude the day, during the drinks session, participants engaged in the “connection game”, where each person received a card with a topic and a number, prompting them to find others with related cards and discover the connections, such as “support staff” or “the first postdocs”.
On Tuesday keynotes were delivered by Zbigniew Palmowski and Nina Gantert. The research session focused on the theme “Statistics in the Machine Learning Era”. In the afternoon, it was a moment for reflection. Wim Senden, the first managing director of EURANDOM, took the audience on a journey through the institute’s history, and Sem Borst covered the more recent developments, among others the transition from a postdoc- and PhD institute to a workshop center in the area of Stochastics. Following these presentations several former postdocs and PhD students shared their memories and explained what their time at EURANDOM meant for them throughout their careers. By touring car the group went to the Evoluon for an inspiring tour through the museum and the conference dinner.
On Wednesday, two parallel tracks were organised, focusing on “Statistical Theory for Sound Data Analysis” and “Random Spatial Structures: New Developments and Perspectives”. By 16:30, the final participants said farewell and gathered their belongings to return home, concluding three days of a remarkable celebration.
