Data science at the University of Konstanz brings together researchers from the fields of computer and information science, biology, mathematics, linguistics, in addition to the social and behavioural sciences (Politics and Public Administration, Economics), to develop methods and systems to visualize, analyze, explore and process large quantities of data generated in the natural and social sciences as well as in the humanities. It profits greatly from the expertise in data mining/big data, interactive systems and visual computing provided by our Department of Computer and Information Science. Since 2015, CRC/TRR 161 “Quantitative Methods for Visual Computing” has been instrumental in advancing this field of research and in developing conceptual metrics and models for quantification as well as new techniques and algorithms for visual computing.
As a particularly interdisciplinary field of inquiry, data science is key to the research carried out in our new Clusters of Excellence “Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour” and “The Politics of Inequality: Perceptions, Participation and Policies”, both of which face methodological challenges related to the collection, processing and visualization of big data.