Data Science Pathways to re-imagine education Erasmus Project

Project Title

Data Science Pathways to re-imagine education

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

The Da.Re. project (Da.Re. stands for “Data science pathways to Re-imagine education”) is an initiative proposed and managed by 11 different partners (Loccioni AEA s.r.l., Università degli Studi di Camerino, Nissatec, Maisis – Information Systems Lda., The Open University, Abelium d.o.o., raziskave in razvoj, Univerza na Primorskem Università del Litorale, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Vision Scientific Ltd., e-consulenza, Associazione degli Industriali) based in 5 European countries (Italy, Slovenia, Portugal, Serbia and the UK).
The project was created for responding to a very important issue raised by different kind of organizations in the world: data scientist will represent one of the most required professional figures in the next years, while the shortage of this kind of professionals is already an issue quantified in hundreds of thousands of uncovered job positions.
More, the distance between Higher Education Institutions (HEI) and the business sector is still very big and the so called “knowledge triangle” should be helped in its crucial connective function.
It is also well known in Europe that data increasingly drives all social and economic activity and innovation, and that strength in data science is fundamental to economic success and social wellbeing. Over the last decade it has become clear that data has huge latent value with companies such as Facebook, Amazon, and Google finding ways to monetize that latency to gain spectacular revenues. This has been highly disruptive to societies worldwide creating new kinds of social and economic interactions with both positive and negative effects. Through initiatives such as the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) Europe is a world leader in mitigating the negative effects of the big data revolution and establishing ethical principles for the use of personal information. However, Europe lags behind the USA in the emergence of companies and organisations able to manage big data and extract value from it.
In this framework the Da.Re. project was intended to obtain a fundamental target, the creation of a full training curriculum of European Qualifications Framework (EQF) level 7 organized to be:
– Cross sectoral
– International
– Multi-targeted
– Accessible
In order to do so, the Consortium created 3 different phases intended to
1. analyse the EU State of the Art in the field of Data Science, comparing the training offer with the demand of the European organizations for such a kind of professional, in order to find gaps among these 2 elements (Intellectual Output 1);
2. work creating modules to be experimented on real case studies for training a new generation of Data Scientists (Intellectual Output 2);
3. apply the knowledge and experience gained during the 2 previous phases to better shape the final curriculum and make propositions to HEIs and Ministries of Education in EU (Intellectual Output 3).
Thanks to the effort put on this action by the different partners, Da.Re. raised an international interest that went even beyond the European borders, reaching more than 120 countries. The initiative collected the direct interest of stakeholders in different ways, leveraging on social networks, the project website, newsletters, participatory and multiplier events, conferences and seminars. In total, the project directly involved more than 1.000 stakeholders thanks to these different initiatives.
The pilot course created with the project obtained more than 200 applications (while the available material online already reached more than 600 downloads), and the modules created, together with the final curriculum produced will constitute a heritage for the future work to be made in this crucial and horizontal sector represented by Data Science.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 417873 Eur

Project Coordinator

AEA s.r.l. & Country: IT

Project Partners

• Maisis – Information Systems Lda.
• UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI CAMERINO
• PRIVREDNO DRUSTVO ZA PRUZANJE USLUGA ISTRAZIVANJE I RAZVOJ NISSATECH INNOVATION CENTRE DOO
• Vision Scientific Ltd
• INSTITUTO POLITECNICO DE BRAGANCA
• ASSOCIAZIONE INDUSTRIALI DELLA PROVINCIA DI ANCONA
• THE OPEN UNIVERSITY