On May 14-15, a meeting of the participants of the EPSILON project ("European Platform for Data Science: Incubation, Learning, Operations and Network") will take place at the Institute of Social Sciences and Applied Informatics, Kaunas Faculty, Vilnius University. The representatives from the project coordinator Harz University (Germany), as well as from Nova SBE School of Science, Business, and Economics (Portugal), Cyprus University (Cyprus), and Vilnius University (Lithuania) will come to Kaunas. In the meeting, the work of the project participants will be discussed, and the results and challenges of implementing data analytics clusters in the regions and attracting volunteers will be presented. VU Kaunas Faculty will be represented at the meeting by Prof. Dr. Dalia Krikšščiūnienė, Partn. Assoc. Prof. Dr. (HP) Virgilijus Sakalauskas and the Dean of the Faculty Assoc. Prof. Dr. Giedrius Romeika.
The project aims to improve the operational models of the European Data for Good initiatives and develop effective governance tools. It is also intended to establish a European knowledge platform and create a new Data for Good initiative in Lithuania. The experience and knowledge gained will be used to develop learning materials for students, university lecturers and data science enthusiasts.
The project is based on the EU initiative "Data Science for Good" (DS4G), which aims to effectively utilize data from public and non-profit organizations for other beneficial purposes: to extract useful information from the data and provide new insights on public health, education, legal environment and security, human resource development, green energy utilization, transportation, sustainability, and climate change issues. The use of data collected from public organizations is complicated not only because of the volume of the data, but also due to its acquisition from different sources, incompatible data formats, insufficient "purity" of data, and the lack of specialists in the fields of IT, data science and analytics.
The project proposes to establish data analytics centers in regions to assist public organizations and small businesses in analyzing their collected data to address relevant issues arising from the digital transformation of societal processes. To implement this idea, teams of volunteers specializing in the field of data science and analytics are being formed, the activities of which could be replicated in foreign countries and contribute to the implementation of the DS4G idea.
For this purpose, the Laboratory of Data Science has been established at the Institute of Social Sciences and Applied Informatics, Kaunas Faculty, Vilnius University. The aim of the laboratory is to conduct fundamental and applied research and obtain new scientific results by applying methods corresponding to the interdisciplinary research topics, based on experimental research in the fields of data science, analytics, and big data studies. It also aims to utilize the knowledge and experience of scientists, involve students in scientific activities, and collaborate with companies holding data for analysis and problem solving.
European Platform for Data Science: Incubation, Learning, Operations and Network (EPSILON).
Project No.: 2021-1-DE01-KA220-HED-000029711.
Project implementation period: 2022-02-01–2025-01-31