As a result of the University’s commitment to data science, the Data Science Initiative has been granted funds to support faculty already involved or planning to get involved in innovative research making use of data science. In the current round of funding, the focus is on developing new projects in the social sciences, and training graduate students and faculty to integrate data science approaches in their research.
Funds have been allocated for the support of graduate students, with a preference for supporting graduate students enrolled in social science PhD programs. Students will be expected to develop competencies in core data science techniques. Faculty PIs should also actively be involved in developing their own knowledge of data science methods.
Funds are available to support graduate students for up to two quarters of work, including benefits and tuition waivers. Faculty should identify students who would benefit from the opportunity to develop computational and data science skills and knowledge through their work on the project. The goal of the funds is not to allow faculty to hire coders, but to allow students and faculty to develop their skills while closely collaborating on research. Faculty may apply with a graduate student in mind or, upon the awarding of a grant, recruit students trained in the companion Computing Essentials for Social Scientists training program.
Graduate student trainees will make up a core group of social scientists working together to advance data science at Northwestern and will be expected to become resources for their student and faculty colleagues. DSI Scholars from the social sciences will provide support and mentoring to graduate student trainees in addition to training provided by PIs.
Projects need not necessarily use “big data.” Data science projects can transform the boundaries of what is possible in social science research by using novel datasets that would have previously been unavailable, using machine learning and other analytic approaches on existing data, or analyzing data at a scale that was not previously possible.
PROPOSAL DEADLINE: June 30th, 11:59 pm.
Proposals will be evaluated by a review panel of Northwestern social scientists. We will communicate the decisions of the review panel 2-4 weeks after the application deadline.
Proposal format
A two-page research proposal (template here), including:
- Description of the goals of the proposed research and its alignment with data science.
- CV of the mentoring faculty members.
- Optional: resume of the proposed graduate student trainee.
- Specific information on the graduate student’s role in the project and the faculty PIs’ commitments to advancing their own understanding of data science methods
- Specific statements of the expected product of the grant, which could be a completed study, first steps toward a larger product, or work on an ongoing research agenda
Preference will be given for
- Projects that show the potential to expand both the graduate student and the faculty PI’s knowledge and expertise in data science tools and techniques.
- Innovative combinations of data sources and analytic techniques that represent significant advances in the PIs’ home disciplines
- The potential to train graduate students in social science who do not already have expertise in data science methods as part of the research.
Enter submission portal here
Download template here
FAQs
Do I need to nominate a student to be my RA to be eligible for the grant?
No. If you have a student in mind, great, but if you don’t you can recruit through the usual means or through our companion training program. The goal of this program is to train our 18 participants to be able to dive into data science projects. There is a good chance many would be interested in joining projects. For those interested, we’ll facilitate matching near the end of summer.
What kind of projects will be funded?
The goal of the Data Science Development Grant program is to encourage the use of novel data sources or methods of analysis beyond traditional correlation and regression analyses in the social sciences. For the purposes of this call, social sciences are those that consider group-level independent or dependent variables. Projects should also help further the programming or data science skills of the hired graduate student and not simply hire an established programmer.
What do you mean by grants will be for one or two quarters of graduate student funding?
Applications can request one or two quarters of funding. Proposals will not be evaluated based on the amount requested, but assuming most submissions will request two quarters, the application form asks whether the project could begin with a single quarter of funding in the event funds are not available for two quarters.
Do I really need a NIH-style bio-sketch?
Nope! Northwestern’s free submission platform (NITRO) has that request hard-coded into it and it can’t be removed. You can just ignore it.
When would funds become available?
Funds will be available for the Fall quarter. Given the decisions timeline of the program, many graduate students will have already made employment arrangements for the Fall quarter and we expect many grants to begin in Winter 2019.
Contact for questions: Chris Skovron (cskovron@northwestern.edu) and Jon Atwell (atwell@northwestern.edu)