JISC

Today sees the launch of the international Digging into Data Challenge. It is designed to encourage research in social science and the humanities, using large-scale data analysis. Entrants are welcome to enter on the competition website, with applicants forming international teams including at least two of the participating countries.

Today sees the launch of the international Digging into Data Challenge. It is designed to encourage research in social science and the humanities, using large-scale data analysis.

This competition challenges scholars to develop international partnerships and explore vast digital resources, including electronic repositories of books, newspapers and photographs, to identify new opportunities for scholarship and encouraging international collaboration between scholars, librarians, data scientists and others.

The four organisations launching the competition are JISC, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the USA’s National Science Foundation (NSF) and Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). Winning teams will receive funding from two or more of these bodies, and will be invited to present their work at a special conference.

NEH Chairman Bruce Cole.  ‘The NEH is delighted to work with JISC, NSF, and SSHRC to offer this competition and we look forward to many exciting discoveries from the analysis and study of this data.’

JISC digitisation programme manager said: ‘The Digging into Data Challenge will allow for the large-scale analysis of huge collections of diverse cultural heritage resources. Such forms of analysis, unthinkable before the arrival of the Internet, will help give new insights to academic inquiry.’                                                                                                                                                                                                       

‘This exciting new joint initiative with NEH, JISC and NSF, will allow Canadian researchers to further develop sophisticated text and image mining and data visualization technologies while building international research partnerships,’ said Chad Gaffield, President of Canada’s SSHRC. 

Haym Hirsh, Director of NSF’s Division of Information and Intelligent Systems added: ‘Through this program, twenty-first century technologies will enable new modes of scholarship that complement centuries-old ways of conducting research.’

Interested applicants should submit a letter of intent by 15 March.  Final applications will be due by 15 July 2009. 

Find further information here