The document discusses foundation support for data science tools and skills training. It notes that while career tracks and barriers to interdisciplinary work remain unchanged, computational and data analysis skills are increasingly important for researchers. The Data-Driven Discovery Initiative aims to catalyze shifts that encourage and reward data-intensive research. This includes making data science resources more accessible and ensuring students understand data analysis by 2020. The initiative promotes tools for data-driven research and funds environments welcoming data scientists to biology.
4. What hasn’t changed:
Career tracks
Barriers to interdisciplinary work
Credit & incentives
Training
Leaky pipeline for
computationally-savvy
researchers
From Flickr by Willie Angus
5. DDD Goal:
Catalyze shifts towards new norms
Academic institutions nurture/reward data-
intensive research(ers)
Tools & practices are available,
disseminated, and used
9. “In 2020, every college student should
be prepared to understand and develop
points of view based on the analysis of
data as well as evaluate arguments
made by others”
Formal
Informal
12. tl;dr: We are organizing an event where trainees launch
collaborative projects.
…Our goal is to host an event that will generate projects that
integrate the skills and expertise of at least two (ideally more)
DDD-I labs…
Barnraising
Gene expression Computer
science
Astrophysics
…DDD
Training Club
17. What we ARE doing:
• Funding data science environments that welcome biologists
• Supporting investigators in biology and life sciences who
demonstrate the skills needed
• Funding projects that enable and promote training the biology
workforce
• Getting involved in discussions about training data scientists
What we ARE NOT doing:
• Directly funding Biology-focused projects/tools
• Directly funding formal data science education