Hundreds of scientific periodical publications in statistics exist in the world, as well as university departments in this field. Why? Because statistical methodology is improved upon, criticized, adapted, reformulated or invented in order to span data situations that are more and more complex. As any science, statistics is subject to great development and growth.

To mention but one current example: advances in biotechnology today produce massive amounts of genetics data that were unheard of just a few years ago. Statistical methods to analyze this type of data present challenges in their conception and numerical computation that require new research in statistics.