The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation have announced a five-year, $37.8 million partnership to enable university scientists to collaborate across campuses on data-intensive research.

The initiative, which involves researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, New York University, and the University of Washington, aims to address systemic challenges in harnessing the full potential of big data to advance the work of data scientists and those who use data science in their research. "Dramatic expansion in the scale of data collection, analysis, and dissemination could revolutionize the speed and volume of discovery," said Chris Mentzel, program officer for the Moore Foundation's Data-Driven Discovery program. "However, success ultimately depends on the individuals and teams that combine domain expertise with computational, statistical, and mathematical skills — what we're calling 'data science.'"

The partnership will work to develop sustained interactions and collaborations among researchers in specific subjects and fields with the aim of determining what is needed to advance each science; establish long-term, sustainable career paths to retain a new generation of scientists whose research focuses on multidisciplinary analysis of complex data as well as the development of tools that enable such analysis; and create an ecosystem of analytical tools and practices that is sustainable, reusable, extensible, and translatable across research areas. Each university will contribute additional resources to the initiative, including new faculty positions, physical space on campus, and research support.

"We must build on...existing efforts that leverage existing industry tools, generate new working tools and practices, and support the multidisciplinary experts who develop new approaches and tools needed to fill gaps," said Ed Lazowska, faculty lead at the University of Washington. "Working together, we believe we're going to shift the culture at our universities — and help accelerate broader uptake — for supporting data-intensive discovery."