Institute of Medical Biometry and Statistics (IMBI)

The Unit of Studies and Statistical Consultancy offers statistical advice as a service to the staff of the Medical Center - University of Freiburg, for the preclinical institutes of the Medical Faculty as well as the associated Academic Teaching Hospitals, and for students of the Medical Faculty Freiburg.

• Necessary requirement for a consultation is to fill out and submit the Online Application form.
• Consultancy should be sought already during the planning phase of the scientific research to help avoid structural and methodological mistakes that might lead to results that do not allow any scientifically valid conclusions.
• We are happy to support you with the further development of your study protocol.
• If you have used artificial intelligence/chatbots such as ChatGPT in the run-up to the consultation, we will help you to assess the results.
  Please make sure that you do not use any patient data there, as this generally violates the university hospital's data protection guidelines.
• If the research is for a doctoral thesis, its description has to be discussed with the mentor.
  • In case of multiple coherent doctoral theses, the mentor should participate in one of the initial consultations to discuss the entire scope of the planned research.
• The scientists of the Institute of Medical Biometry and Statistics provide methodological and statistical advice during all phases of research including planning, conduct, analysis and interpretation. The statistical analysis itself is usually not conducted by the responsible consultant.
  • Please bear in mind that data of patients of the Medical Center - University of Freiburg must be processed within the framework of the data protection regulations of the Medical Center - University of Freiburg. Please refrain from any unsolicited data transmission via email, even when identifying data like name, date of birth, address and PIZ have been erased from the data. Should you believe a data transmission to be absolutely necessary for a successful consultation, please ask your personal consultant about the proper proceedings for this before taking any action.
• The consultation, including the use of the computing infrastructure, is free of charge for purely scientific research.
• In case the Institute contributes substantially to the research and where the cooperation results in a publication, the consulting scientist should be included as a co-author, and the manuscript has to be submitted to the consultant prior to its submission to a journal and publication.
• Persons seeking statistical consulting should have a basic knowledge in medical statistics, such as it is taught in QB1 Epidemiology, Medical Biometry and Medical Informatics. Recommended reading:
  • Schumacher M, Schulgen G: Methodik klinischer Studien. Methodische Grundlagen der Planung, Durchführung und Auswertung., New York - Heidelberg: Springer, 3. Auflage , 2008: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-85136-3