Evidence-based policy: uncovering causality from data
The project helps to substantially improve the impact analysis of decisions taken by economic policymakers and private sector actors.
Big Data
Applications, Technologies, and Societal Aspects
The ongoing societal digitalisation results in the collection of massive volumes of data. This so-called big data holds the potential for widespread societal, industrial, and scientific value creation – if harnessed effectively. The National Research Programme “Big Data” (NRP 75) ran between 2015 and 2022. Its research projects developed real-world applications, invented new technologies and investigated societal aspects in relation to big data, thereby increasing the Swiss research and innovation capacity in big data.
Conclusions
The conclusions of NRP 75’s Steering Committee suggest how to facilitate responsible value creation from big data, contributing to political and professional debates on this new resource.
Foster an appropriate environment for big data development
(1) Enhance education of big data professionals
(2) Support legal and ethical advice for big data research and development projects
(3) Enable certification of big data application properties
Integrate big data in public and private organisations
(4) Increase the exploitation of big data technologies in the health sector
(5) Strengthen policy making and evaluation with big data
(6) Promote shared data collection, application benchmarks and open-source software
Update and create adequate regulation
(7) Pursue more proactive regulation of big data
(8) Advance data privacy and digital sovereignty in big data applications
(9) Increase transnational harmonisation of regulations
Selected Articles
Mapping global innovation: analysing patents
In this NRP 75 project, a novel approach for the early identification of “influential” patents was developed.
Intensive care units: an automated alert system
Reduce false alarms, predict critical complications: this could improve patient safety and this is where the NRP 75 project “ICU Cockpit” comes in.
Renewable energy potential: evaluation for Switzerland
The “HyEnergy” project sought to study the potential of hybrid renewable energy systems, i.e. systems combining two types of energy production.
Optimising transport management: anonymous individual mobility traces
Using Big Data, for example the large quantity of data from smartphones, can help to improve traffic management methods and models.
Soil erosion: quantification by aerial photography in Switzerland
The ‘weObserve’ project therefore developed efficient strategies enabling data analyses and evaluations on a large scale and over time.
Big Data: what and why
NRP75 has contributed substantially to reinforcing the necessary competences in big data in Switzerland, the capacities for interdisciplinary innovation as well as the abilities to find appropriate social and legal solutions. What was NRP 75, what are the conclusions and what is the outlook.
Big Data Applications
Fifteen research projects produced concrete big data applications in collaborations bringing together computing and domain experts. The results showcase the concrete impact that big data innovations can have in domains such as renewable energy planning, patient monitoring in hospitals, evidencebased policy making, and science itself. The projects underline the importance of interdisciplinary teams capable of working across disciplines and who can navigate the relevant ethical, legal and operational contexts.
Big Data Technologies
Eleven research projects in computer science studied and invented technologies needed for harnessing current and future big data. They covered infrastructure aspects, including data access, cleaning, indexing and pre-processing; and they covered analytics, including query processing, data mining and machine learning, to facilitate knowledge extraction from data. These advances can improve the functionality and performance of big data applications, for instance by enhancing privacy or reducing the computing and data resources needed for model training in machine learning.
Societal Aspects
Eight research projects investigated specific societal aspects of the deployment of big data, including ethical and legal aspects. Projects studied concrete examples of the use of big data, for instance in human resources and insurance. Their outcomes stress the importance of adapting the legislation to the changing capabilities of technology, of developing guidelines related to the use of big data, of increased ethics awareness and transparency related to the use of data, and of closely following how big data impacts democracy.
Teaching material
Acquiring data skills requires new and optimised teaching supports. In collaboration with the Museum for Communication, NRP 75 produced teaching material on big data for lower and upper secondary school levels, comprising eight modules of two lessons each.