A key aim of this workshop was to foster collaborations and links between the astronomical, machine learning and statistics community in the Netherlands. To do this we brought people together from these varied communities to exchange views and to learn each other’s nomenclature.

The workshop was opened by Prof. Heavens on "Getting statisticians and astronomers to talk together” followed by a concerted effort of participants to agree on notation and terminology across the scientific fields – a most instructive exercise! The following days were structured to have a mixture of talks from different areas in the morning and after lunch we had impromptu presentations and discussions on specific scientific problems that might be of interest across the scientific fields.

The main scientific output was that a number of cross-disciplinary MSc projects have been conceived whereby several have already started (in Nijmegen and between Leiden and Delft) and a follow-up workshop has been tentatively planned in two years’ time.

The presence of a small group with very varied background provided a very fertile ground for ideas and the emphasis on explaining the astronomical and statistical nomenclature to other fields meant that there were plenty of aha experiences during the meeting.

We all felt that the format of the Lorentzcenter@Snellius was very well suited to this workshop. The small format and open space was very conducive to interactions. The fairly informal structure with talks in the morning and impromptu presentations after lunch worked very well and the availability of many writing surfaces was also very helpful here.

All participants, in particular the organisers, were very happy with their experience!

Jarle Brinchmann (Leiden, Netherlands)

Eric Cator (Nijmegen, Netherlands)

Tom Heskes (Nijmegen, Netherlands)

Gijs Nelemans (Nijmegen, Netherlands)

Rien van de Weijgaert (Groningen, Netherlands)