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About Us
Our vision: We want to see the challenges of global food production eradicated
through the effective application of data, analytics and technology.
Our Values
Collaboration
Working together to solve the problems and open opportunities for everyone.
Flexibility
Being open-minded in our approach to what we do and how we do it.
Growth
Always seeking to grow as people, as pioneers and as a successful business.
Respect
For each other, our customers, our partners and our
planet.
Our Software & Data Mission
To provide highly valued, instantly accessible and intuitively usable world leading analytical software that will enable continual, sustainable improvements in the effectiveness and efficiency of food production: benefiting our customers, our people, our owners and our planet.
Meet The VSNi Global Team
Our History
Sir Ronald Fisher
Sir Ronald Fisher was the first to apply statistics in biological research. He worked at Rothamsted Research for 14 years from 1919, where he developed the analysis of variance (ANOVA) to analyze the immense data from crop experiments. Fisher realized the need for improved statistical techniques over the whole range of agricultural and biological research, and the groundwork for modern applied statistics was laid by him and his colleagues during the 1920s and 1930s.
He is known as one of the three principal founders of population genetics. He outlined Fisher’s principle as well as the Fisherian runaway and sexy son hypothesis theories of sexual selection. He also made important contributions to statistics, including the maximum likelihood, fiducial inference, the derivation of various sampling distributions and many others.
Frank Yates
Statistical computing began at Rothamsted when Fisher’s successor Frank Yates obtained an Elliot 401 computer – one of the first computers to be used away from its manufacturing base, and one of the first to be used for statistical work. This extended the tradition, started by Fisher, of conducting statistical research to solve real problems arising from biological research. The resulting new methods could now be implemented in the Rothamsted statistical programs to enable them to be used more effectively in practice.
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Prof. John Nelder
Prof. John Nelder was a British statistician known for his contributions to experimental design, analysis of variance, computational statistics, and statistical theory. While leading research at Rothamsted Experimental Station, he developed and supervised the updating of the statistical software package Genstat, whose flexible high-level programming language allowed statisticians to formulate linear models concisely. Genstat contains powerful facilities for the analysis of variance for block experiments, an area where Nelder made many important contributions.
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Genstat
The development of Genstat at Rothamsted began in 1968, when John Nelder took over from Yates as Head of Statistics. Genstat began to be distributed outside Rothamsted during the 1970s and, in 1979, its distribution was taken over by the Numerical Algorithms Group (NAG), one of the world’s oldest technical computing companies.
ASReml
ASReml was first developed at Rothamsted. The ASReml software is powerful statistical analysis software specially designed for mixed models using Residual Maximum Likelihood (REML) to estimate the parameters. Linear mixed-effects models provide a rich and flexible tool for the analysis of many data sets commonly arising in animal, plant and aqua breeding, agriculture, environmental sciences and medical sciences.
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VSNi
VSNi was formed in 2000 as a spin-off company from Rothamsted and NAG. This brought together the Genstat/ASReml development group from Rothamsted with the statistical commercialization group from NAG to provide a stronger collaboration of research and development with sales and marketing.
VSNi became the private partner of Integrated Breeding Platform (IBP)
The IBP provides Breeding management system (BMS) which is specifically designed to help breeders manage their day-to-day activities through all phases of their breeding programmes. The statistical algorithms in the Breeding View were developed by VSN International Ltd.
VSNC
VSNC was founded in 2013 as a wholly-owned subsidiary to VSNi. VSNC is responsible for the development, support and promotion of VSNi products in China, including data analysis software, training and data analysis solutions.
H3 Analytics Pipeline
In 2021, VSNi embarked on an innovative collaboration, establishing H3 Analytics, a venture that amalgamated statistical proficiency with genetics expertise, offering a powerful analytics pipeline tailored for advancing breeding programmes. Through a modular and precise approach to workflows, this collaboration helps breeding programmes by strategically enhancing and optimising the most critical areas leading to enhanced precision and efficiency.
New solutions on the horizon
VSNi continues to evolve its software solutions, including Genstat and ASReml-R, while simultaneously developing innovative new products. As a leading provider of Agri-science analytics, we propel genetic advancements through expertise, cutting-edge technology, and data excellence. With exciting new solutions on the horizon, VSNi remains dedicated to pushing boundaries. Our goal is to empower global researchers and industry professionals, enabling them to achieve groundbreaking discoveries and drive significant progress in crop and livestock breeding.
Some of our Data Software Clients
Join VSNi to help thousands of customers around the world utilise our statistical
analysis software to power their decision-making and discovery.
Join our team
Join the thousands of users relying on our services to power their decision-making and discovery.
There are currently no open vacancies.
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