Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research BBVA – Foundation Awards 2020

The Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research is a non-profit organization whose purposes include the advancement of statistics and operations research in Spain through the promotion of research, its transmission to society, and the improvement of education at all levels. Its main goals are to disseminate the quality and progress of statistics and operations research, to promote the teaching and learning of these subjects, to convey their importance to today’s society, and to be a reference in all matters pertaining to science and technology.

The BBVA Foundation expresses the BBVA Group’s engagement with the promotion of knowledge and innovation. Its activity centers on support for scientific research (through research projects, grants and collaboration with scientific societies), the recognition of talent through families of awards organized alone or in conjunction with scientific societies, and the wider dissemination of knowledge and culture, which it understands as the most effective means to expand our individual and collective choices. Its diverse programs, run directly or in partnership with leading institutions and organizations, are focused primarily on the areas of Basic Sciences, Biology and Biomedicine, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Economics and Social Sciences, Statistics, Big Data and AI, Information and Communication Technologies, Humanities, Music and the Arts.

A maximum of five awards will be granted under this call, each for a gross amount of 6,000 euros, in recognition of pioneering and influential contributions to worldwide research in statistics and operations research. In the event that the award goes to a candidature made up of two or more people, its monetary amount will be divided equally between them.

The awards are directed at researchers in statistics and operations research of Spanish or any other nationality that have conducted their investigation in a university or scientific center in Spain. They may also go to researchers of any nationality for contributions made in collaboration with one or more Spanish researchers.

All the required documentation for the awards should be sent to the email address of the SEIO Secretariat (oficina@seio.es) before 14:00 (Spanish mainland time) on 30 June, 2020.

Candidates and signatories of letters of support will receive confirmation of the receipt of the material provided. Once the submission period has expired and it has been established that the candidates meet the call conditions and have provided the required documentation in due time and form, they will be notified by email that their submission has been accepted and the documentation will be forwarded to the committee deciding the awards. If correctable errors are detected in the submission (or relative to letters of support), candidates will be given a non-extendible period of 10 calendar days in which to correct them, so their entries can be taken into consideration.

The awards in this call will be decided before Friday, 31 July, 2020.

Article 1

Each award will go to the authors or co-authors of a specific contribution, and will comprise a diploma and a total cash prize of 6,000 euros, less the percentage deductible under current tax regulations. A maximum of one award will be given in each of the following categories:

1. Best methodological contribution in the Statistics field.
2. Best methodological contribution in the Operations Research field.
3. Best applied contribution with impact in the social arena, innovation or knowledge transfer in the Statistics field.
4. Best applied contribution with impact in the social arena, innovation or knowledge transfer in the Operations Research field.
5. Best contribution in Statistics and Operations Research applied to Data Science and Big Data.

Contributions will consist primarily of scientific papers, which must have been published in the last five years. Notwithstanding this preference, in the case of applied contributions specifically, they may take diverse forms on the condition that they represent a significant development in the disciplinary fields addressed by the awards.

Awardees will be required to take part in a presentation ceremony to be held in Madrid in October 2020.

The scientific committee for the next SEIO conference will consider the possibility of organizing a dedicated session at the event for the presentation of the winning contributions.

Article 2

Candidatures for the 2020 Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research – BBVA Foundation Awards for particularly significant scientific contributions in Statistics and Operations Research should be presented by the candidate or submission coordinator, one or several SEIO members, or one or more experts invited by the BBVA Foundation. For correspondence purposes, please provide the name of a single candidate or submission coordinator, who will also be the person signing the submission form.

All entries should be presented in English and include the following documents in digital format:

• Submission form completed and signed by the candidate or submission coordinator, downloadable from the SEIO or BBVA Foundation website.
• The quality indicators of the contribution relative to the award for which it has been submitted should be set out in a reasoned letter of presentation, duly dated and signed by the candidate or submission coordinator.
• Copy of the contribution submitted in the call.
• Presentation of two letters of support, duly dated and signed. In this case, the authors of the letters should send them directly to the SEIO Secretariat (oficina@seio.es) before the entry deadline specified herein, with the name of the candidate or submission coordinator stated clearly in the subject line. The names of the signatories of letters of support should be stated in the submission form.

Article 3

The awards will be decided by a committee made up of three specialists appointed by the BBVA Foundation and a further three appointed by the SEIO’s academic councils. Neither the sitting, outgoing or incoming president of the SEIO may serve on this committee. For the purposes of Article 4, four substitutes will be designated, appointed in equal number by the organizing entities.

The committee will select a maximum of five awardees from the candidatures received and will submit its decision for ratification to the SEIO Executive Council. In its ratification proposal, it should state the scientific relevance of the contributions or achievements selected. For each award to be granted, it will need to have the approval of a simple majority of SEIO Executive Council members, proceeding as specified in the SEIO statutes. Awards may be declared wholly or partially vacant.

Article 4

No person who has submitted, supported or in any manner recommended a candidature may serve on the committee. Any other situation of conflict of interest between committee members and candidates (family relationship, present or past PhD advisor or student, member of the same department, present or past scientific collaboration of more than an occasional nature, present or past member of the same research project, manifest enmity, or any other circumstance involving a conflict of interest) should be expressly declared in advance. In the event that some candidature is subject to a conflict of interest, the committee member affected may not take part in the award deliberations and decisions. This same criterion will apply to the Executive Council members responsible for ratifying the awardees proposed by the committee.

In view of the above, having being apprised of the candidatures and before deliberations begin, committee members must notify the SEIO Executive Council and the BBVA Foundation of any possible incompatibility that might arise, in which case they will be replaced by one of the substitutes designated during the process of appointing the committee.

Article 5

The terms of current legislation on the protection of personal data will be complied with at all stages of this call.

The fact of participating in the call signifies the acceptance of its conditions and award decision, which will not be open to appeal, and renunciation of any claim in its respect of whatsoever nature.

No itemized or individual information will be provided on the submissions received or the deliberations of the committee or the SEIO Executive Council.

Any questions arising about the interpretation of these call conditions will be resolved upon by the SEIO Executive Council and the BBVA Foundation. Exceptionally, the BBVA Foundation and SEIO reserve the right to make changes in the wording of these conditions, for duly justified reasons, for the sole purpose of clarifying their content, without such changes in any case implying a substantial or arbitrary alteration of the same. The text of these call conditions will be available for the duration of this call on the organizer websites www.fbbva.es and www.seio.es.

The identity of the winning candidates will be published on the SEIO and BBVA Foundation websites, as will the membership of the committee and the list of SEIO Executive Council members taking part in the corresponding deliberations.