Data Science

The digitization of society has a major impact on all sectors, including scientific research and education. At Leiden University, Data Science is positioned as one of the key areas to innovate scientific research in all faculties.

Today, more data than ever before are gathered in all scientific fields. Data that, if opened up, could provide researchers with tremendous amounts of useful information. Processing data (selecting, collecting, cleaning, analyzing) can take place on a much larger scale than before. In addition, techniques from statistics, computer science, data mining and artificial intelligence (e.g. machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision) enable new research directions. Examples include finding patterns in high-dimensional data sets or in the dynamics of complex networks.

The Data Science Research Programme is a joint effort of all seven faculties of the University of Leiden. PhD students are playing key roles within the programme. At this moment 16 PhD candidates work on the development and application of data science in various fields of research at Leiden University.