Since 1984, the Journées d’Étude en Statistique (JES) of the French Statistical Society (SFdS) have aimed to devote an entire week to exploring a well-defined theme in depth, within an environment that fosters meetings and discussions. To encourage this, the number of participants is limited to 45.
The main goals are:
These study days are open to statisticians who are not necessarily specialists in the chosen topic.
The 22nd Study Days
The first neural networks were designed around the 1950s with the goal of performing classification tasks by mimicking the functioning of neurons in the human brain. They experienced a surge in the 1980s thanks to advances in optimization methods on the one hand, and the growth of digital electronics, which greatly increased computing power, on the other. Today, they are an essential component of deep learning and artificial intelligence methods, enabling the processing of image data, time series of all kinds, and textual data. Neural network models are no longer limited to learning tasks—they can generate new data, address inverse problems, and optimize a wide range of tasks, among other applications.
After an introduction to the single-layer perceptron and the multilayer perceptron, the program will cover the fundamentals of optimization methods used in this field. Theoretical foundations of neural networks will then be presented, followed by an overview of network architectures designed for specific tasks: convolutional networks for image processing, recurrent networks for sequential data, and transformer networks for textual data. On the practical side, participants will learn key principles for training neural networks, and two computer sessions will allow hands-on experimentation on real datasets. The week will conclude with case studies on omics data and a combinatorial optimization problem.
The 2026 Study Days therefore aim to take stock—through a statistical lens—of neural networks, with contributions from French-speaking experts who have played an active role in the development of this field. The lectures will be compiled into a document distributed to participants and later published as a book.
PROGRAM
The day-by-day program can be viewed at the following link
REGISTRATION CONDITIONS
These study days are reserved for members of the SFdS. You must therefore have your 2026 membership up to date on the first day of JES 2026.
Pre-registration is exclusively online via this link
Registration will be finalized upon receipt of payment or a purchase order.
As the number of places is limited (45 participants), registration requests will be processed in the order they are received.
REGISTRATION FEES
Until 31/05/2026:
PhD student: €330
University staff (or equivalent): €420
Others: €1,050
From 01/06/2026:
PhD student: €430
University staff (or equivalent): €520
Others: €1,250
Accommodation and meals will be provided on-site, full board, from Sunday evening (including dinner) until Friday after lunch, for a flat rate of €585 for a double room and €685 for a single room. Accommodation fees must be paid at the same time as registration.
PhD students will be accommodated in double rooms. Other participants may choose a single or double room depending on availability and the order of registration, as provided by CIRM.
The prices indicated are net. The SFdS Journées d’Étude en Statistique are not subject to VAT (art. 261-a of the French Tax Code).
Note: PhD students are requested to send a scanned copy of their student ID to Anne GÉGOUT-PETIT.