Laying the groundwork for data-driven science

The ability to collect and analyze massive amounts of data is rapidly transforming science, industry and everyday life, but what we have seen so far is likely just the tip of the iceberg. Many of the benefits of `Big Data` have yet to surface because of a lack of interoperability, missing tools and hardware that is still evolving to meet the diverse needs of scientific communities.

One of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) priority goals is to improve the nation’s capacity in data science by investing in the development of infrastructure, building multi-institutional partnerships to increase the number of U.S. data scientists and augmenting the usefulness and ease of using data.

As part of that effort, NSF today announced $31 million in new funding to support 17 innovative projects under the Data Infrastructure Building Blocks (DIBBs) program. Now in its second year, the 2014 DIBBs awards support research in 22 states and touch on research topics in computer science, information technology and nearly every field of science supported by NSF.

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