New Big Data and Development Fellowship: Apply to work with our Data Scientist

I am happy to report that the Big Data and Human Development Incubator has just recruited a data scientist to work with the network for the next 9 months.

Fabian Braesemann has a PhD in Social and Economic Sciences from the University of Vienna, and has been working as a Data Scientist over the last year. He has experience/skills in diverse aspects of data science and data mining. However, his main expertise is on datafication and the application of data science to social science questions. He will be using the computing facilities at the Oxford Internet Institute.

In order to kick-start some pilot projects within our network, we are proposing that teams from around the university can bid to work with Fabian on small projects that use computational/big data approaches and speak to key questions in human development (we can take a broad view of what constitutes human development, and will consider research that focuses on poverty, inequality, economic development, political voice and representation, activism, and other topics).

We ask that any interested teams submit a 1-2 page pitch. Each pitch should outline what questions the group seeks to answer, what data they seek to use, and what further work this might result in. It should also outline the cross-disciplinary or cross-departmental nature of the work (these bids can be a way of building links or deepening existing links, but should not just be used by teams or scholars within a single department). Please also include short bios of the proposed team members. More details about what we need are included in the bullet point list below.

Proposals could be speculative in nature (scraping data, trialing analysis), but do not have to be.

We hope to ask Fabian to work with three successful teams over his 9 month contract at Oxford, so please pitch an idea that will take roughly 2-4 months of his time either as full time engagement or on a part-time basis. We ask for all pitches to be submitted by March 1.

Please feel free to circulate this CFP. Submit your pitches to Mark Graham, and please get in touch if you have any questions.

• Projects can address questions in any area of human development.
• Projects should be completed by March 2018 at the latest.
• There is no further funding available from the Big Data and Human Development Incubator. In other words, these your proposal will be to work with Fabian, and will not be a bid for any additional funding from us.
• Projects can be exploratory or at early stages of development. Most important is that you have a vision for how this might turn into a larger funded project after completion of your pilot work.
• You may work with collaborators outside of Oxford, but the core team should be based at the university.
• Anyone at the university who is eligible to apply for external funding will be eligible to lead one of these bids.
• If we receive more than three three month bids, we will distribute all applications to lead-researchers on each of the bids and other scholars in the big data and development network in order to ask them to rank submissions.