News

Announcing the Digging into Data Challenge

Published: 21 January 2009

 

A joint initiative of the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) from the United Kingdom, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) from the United States, the National Science Foundation (NSF) from the United States, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada.


The advent of what has been called "data-driven inquiry" or "cyberscholarship" has changed the nature of inquiry across many disciplines, including the sciences and humanities, revealing new opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration on problems of common interest.  The creation of vast quantities of Internet accessible digital data and the development of techniques for large-scale data analysis and visualization have led to remarkable new discoveries in genetics, astronomy, and other fields, and-importantly-connections between academic disciplinary areas.  New techniques of large-scale data analysis allow researchers to discover relationships, detect discrepancies, and perform computations on data sets that are so large that they can be processed only using computing resources and computational methods developed and made economically affordable within the past few years.  With books, newspapers, journals, films, artworks, and sound recordings being digitized on a massive scale, it is possible to apply data analysis techniques to large collections of diverse cultural heritage resources as well as scientific data.  How might these techniques help scholars use these materials to ask new questions about and gain new insights into our world?  To encourage innovative approaches to this question, four international research organizations are organizing a joint grant competition to focus the attention of the social science and humanities research communities on large-scale data analysis and its potential application to a wide range of scholarly resources.

Applicants will form international teams from at least two of the participating countries.

From www.diggingintodata.com

The goals of the initiative are:

  • to promote the development and deployment of innovative research techniques in large-scale data analysis;
  • to foster interdisciplinary collaboration among scholars in the humanities, social sciences, computer sciences, information sciences, and other fields, around questions of text and data analysis;
  • to promote international collaboration; and
  • to work with data repositories that hold large digital collections to ensure efficient access to these materials for research.

The complete RFP online: www.diggingintodata.com

Team leaders from McGill should also consult the ADDENDUM FOR SSHRC on this same website.


Agency DEADLINE - Letter of intent:
March 15, 2009  (LOI is mandatory)
RGO DEADLINE - Letter of intent:
5 working days before the agency deadline

Agency DEADLINE - Full proposal: July 15, 2009
RGO DEADLINE:
TBA (please inform RGO if you are invited to submit a full proposal)

For any other information or questions, please contact Rupa Narasimhadevara at 514-398-7105

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