The proposed project is focused on the development of new statistical methods to generate, evaluate and combine infectious disease nowcasts and short-term forecasts. The developed methods will be implemented in open-source software packages and applied in real time to various pathogens. Forecasts can e.g., refer to the number of required hospital or intensive care beds. For different parts of the project, collaborations with partners in the United Kingdom and the United States are planned.

A specific focus will be on methods for multi-model forecasting. There is a growing consensus that disease forecasting should be based on several different models rather than just one. This is reflected in the creation of numerous so-called Forecast Hubs, e.g., by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (covid19forecasthub.eu). The planned projects shall contribute to and build upon the modeling work taking place in such open collaborations.

The position is suitable for PhD studies. The planned PhD supervisors are Principal Investigators in the Helmholtz Information and Data Science School for Health (www.hidss4health.de/), and we intend to associate doctoral candidates with this graduate school.