UvA Data Science Centre: Highlights 2024

4 April 2025

In 2024, the UvA Data Science Centre continued to grow as a community, now counting 95 affiliate members. Highlights of the year included the opening of the HAVA-Lab, scientific research contributions from our members, and a range of workshops and events, such as the annual Data Science Day, to support and connect the community.

The Data Science Centre Community

The Data Science Centre, part of the UvA Library, is dedicated to advancing research and education at the university by developing, sharing, and promoting artificial intellligence and data science methods and technologies across faculties of the University of Amsterdam. This is achieved through a range of support and innovation programmes that connect and empower data scientists, data engineers, data stewards, bioinformaticians, ICT developers, PhD candidates, lecturers, and assistant professors across the University of Amsterdam, with central coordination from the UvA Library.

2024 showed how artificial intelligence is shaping and being shaped by the UvA. This report highlights the critical role that the DSC has played in AI and more broadly data science at the UvA. One of the highlights of the year was the opening of the HAVA-Lab, kicking off a DSC PhD- research programme focused on the alignment of human values and video-AI. Such research can only be done by the combination of the expertise from all 7 faculties. The DSC’s ability to connect the whole university was demonstrated by Data Science Day which had a multi-event multi-site programme held across 5 UvA campuses. Prof. dr. Paul Groth Professor of Algorithmic Data Science, Faculty of Science Informatics Institute, & Scientific director of the Data Science Centre

Affiliate members

As of 2024, the Data Science Centre has 95 affiliate members from every faculty in the university, well beyond the target of 42 FTE by 2025. Affiliate members, and the larger research community at the UvA, continue to be supported by the DSC through a variety of activities including training sessions, seminars, and the annual Away Day. In addition, members are provided public platforms and opportunities to showcase their research, as well as receive support to attend external training and events. Each month, one Affiliate member is featured in the DSC Member Spotlight, highlighting the diverse applications and impact of data science.

Scientific impact of the DSC community

With the financial support of the DSC, our Accelerate and Interdisciplinary PhD Affiliate members co-authored 65 scientific publications in 2024, some of which have been featured in the media:

Paula Helm was featured in the Dutch magazine De Groene Amsterdammer, in the article “Talloze woorden voor rijst” (1000 Words for Rice) discussing the digitization of indigenous languages by big tech.
Daniel Mayerhoffer discussed heterodox economics research and the perception of economic inequality in an episode of the German podcast In der Wirtschaft.
Ciara Piccoli’s research was highlighted in a blog post on the Europeana platform, The 4D Research Lab: 3D Modelling and Virtual Reconstruction for Research and Education.
Fabio Votta contributed to the article “Content Moderation and Platform Observability in the Digital Services Act” for Tech Policy Press, and an article on social media advertising by politicians “Tom Vandendriesschhe (Vlaams belang) waagt zich wel aan X-advertenties” for the Belgian site Apache.

Highlights of 2024

Away Day on FAIR data and software implementation

This annual members-only event, organised on 23 May at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision in Hilversum, was attended by over 40 DSC members from 5 faculties, and featured talks by Prof. Paul Groth and Dr. Colette Bos (programme director eScience Center) on FAIR data and software. Participants brainstormed FAIR Data Implementation challenges and collaborated in a Data Annotation-athon, refining datasets for quality and labeling. Key takeaways: annotation is culture- and context-dependent, and AI can outperform minimally trained annotators.

HAVA-Lab Opening

On Wednesday, 16 October, Peter-Paul Verbeek, rector magnificus of the University of Amsterdam, officially opened the ‘Human-Aligned Video-AI Laboratory’ (HAVA-Lab) at the UvA Library. The Lab is one of the PhD programmes of the DSC and will investigate the human alignment of video AI. It is the first research project at UvA to involve all 7 faculties, emphasizing the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in tackling complex societal challenges. Researchers will address both technological and societal issues, such as bias-free crime detection and improving efficiency in dental training.

Data Science Day

This year, on 18 October, the annual Data Science Day went big, hosting five events across all 5 UvA campuses with 200 participants and 20+ speakers on data science and AI. Topics ranged from AI opportunities in scientific research and LLMs in healthcare to GDPR compliance in data collection. Participants explored social science datasets in a Data Discovery Jam and discussed Generative AI applications in HR, including analytics and employee feedback.

Coffee and Data Meetups

The DSC provided workshops for all UvA researchers on AI & Data Ethics, Poster Design, Data Visualisation, Research Software Management and Introduction to HPC & Snellius (with a total of 92 attendees). In collaboration with the Vrije Universiteit, the DSC offered 4 introductions to programming with Python and R through Software Carpentry workshops (with a total of 101 attendees).

Throughout the year, 5 Data Science Seminars were organized, attracting 80 attendees. These seminars offer DSC members a platform to share their research and exchange ideas, highlighting the broad impact of data science across disciplines. Topics covered included machine learning in medical diagnostics, the role of 3D reconstructions in urban history, challenges in engineering digital twins of critical infrastructures, testing prompt engineering for knowledge extraction from text, and alternative practices in critical data studies.

Expanded Outreach and Collaboration

Workshop on evaluating emerging knowledge infrastructures

Anne Beaulieu, the second fellow in the DSC-IAS joint fellowship programme, led a workshop at the Lorentz Center (15–19 April) on evaluating emerging knowledge infrastructures. The workshop explored assessment methods beyond standardized comparisons, focusing on values like openness, sustainability, diversity, and participation. 22 people attended. The workshop was sponsored by the DSC and the IAS.

Conferences and seminars

In addition, the DSC collaborated with Amsterdam AI on a Generative AI & HRM seminar, with a total of 23 attendees. The DSC also co-organised and presented at the NL eScience Centre: Research Software Day (200 attendees), presented at the AI & Erfgoed Congres (190 attendees) and sponsored a keynote at the Summer Institute in Computational Social Science.

Programmes and Calls

Accelerate Programme

The Accelerate call co-finances the hiring of data science and engineering talent across UvA faculties. In 2024, the call supported the hiring of an additional 4 FTE positions in Faculty of Social and Behavioral Science, Faculty of Humanities, Faculty of Dentistry, and Faculty of Science. Since its launch in 2021, the call has facilitated the hiring of 49.5 staff members across all 7 faculties of the UvA.

Generative AI Call

A Generative AI pilot project was launched by UvA’s Research IT, introducing new infrastructure to support generative AI in research. The platform offers secure access to advanced models, including GPT-4, ensuring safe and reliable use. To tailor the infrastructure to researchers’ needs, Research IT engaged the DSC network, inviting early users to provide feedback. This initiative aims to identify researchers and projects that require generative AI tools, offering free access up to a predefined limit. The call is will reopen in 2025.

Research Software Engineering Support Call

The DSC launched its first research software engineering support call in 2023, funding 3 projects that were completed in 2024. The linguistic data processing tool CorpusCompass received a new user interface and improved usability, the Triple R project developed an R Shiny app to visualize insomnia models, and the TRACE project created Linked Open Datasets and an Omeka S site to display WWII radio metadata. In 2024, a second round of funding supported projects on soil erosion, youth mental health meta-analysis, and improving a generative language model.

Looking to the future: the DSC in 2025

In 2025, the Data Science Centre marks its 4-year anniversary, reinforcing its role as a key driver of data science innovation at UvA. As we look ahead, we remain committed to expanding our impact, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, and supporting researchers in leveraging data science for groundbreaking research.

AI & Data Science Day 2025

Our flagship annual event returns on 30 October 2025 as AI & Data Science Day, with the theme “Data Science as Teamwork,” this time in the brand-new University Library. Bringing together researchers, industry experts, and students, the event will feature cutting-edge discussions, interactive workshops, and networking opportunities, further strengthening the role of data science at UvA.