Discovery Park announces request for proposals to support data science initiative

As part of its Integrative Data Science Initiative, Purdue is launching an internal funding opportunity for ambitious proposals that apply data science to pressing, socially relevant issues.

The funding will leverage the University's existing strengths in data analytics to help position Purdue as a leader in science-enabled research, says Tomás Díaz de la Rubia, chief scientist and executive director of Discovery Park, who is spearheading the research thrust of the initiative.

“A request for proposals represents the first investment toward achieving the goals of the Integrative Data Science Initiative,” Díaz de la Rubia says. “We encourage high-risk, high-payoff proposals that describe game-changing, transformative ideas targeted to one of the four initial focus areas.”

The Office of the Executive Vice President for Research and Partnerships will fund several projects at the level of $100,000-$150,000 for two years in the following areas:

* Data Science for Health Care: Proposals that have the potential to significantly transform health and health care through innovative data science-enabled research.

* Data Science for Defense: Proposals that provide concepts that could dramatically improve the efficiency of data science in accomplishing defense and security missions.

* Data Science for Ethics, Society and Policy: Proposals that bring social scientific and humanistic inquiry together with data science.

* Data Science for Fundamentals, Methods and Algorithms: Proposals that elicit a better understanding of core concepts in data science including information, knowledge, fairness, trust, risk, collusion, privacy and information-efficient computation.

* In addition, proposals are requested that exploit synergies among the four areas above and where researchers from across disciplines will work together across these boundaries. Examples might include proposals exploring a problem at the nexus of policy and defense-related data science, or the application of data science fundamentals/theory to a health-related grand challenge.

Proposals are due by April 19. Refer to the linked document for proposal details. 

Additional questions can be directed to Cliff Wojtalewicz, assistant director of Discovery Park, at cliffw@purdue.edu.

Writer: Angie Roberts, akroberts@purdue.edu
Source: Cliff Wojtalewicz, 765-496-3961, cliffw@purdue.edu