About the Accelerate Programme
The UvA Data Science Centre (DSC) aims to accelerate data driven research within the University of Amsterdam, to strengthen data science expertise across all faculties of UvA, and promote cross-disciplinary collaboration and sharing of knowledge among the data science community at UvA.
One of the mechanisms by which the DSC achieves this is through the Accelerate programme. The Accelerate programme stimulates the hiring of data scientists and data engineers within faculties through the provision of matching funding. This funding helps support the costs of hiring a new or existing staff member in these roles.
Staff members hired through the Accelerate programme automatically become Affiliate members of the DSC. This means becoming a part of an interdisciplinary community of like-minded data scientists and engineers across UvA faculties, and having access to opportunities that will further data driven research and data science careers such as specialised training and workshops.
Since its launch in 2021, the Accelerate programme has led to the successful hiring of the equivalent of 18 FTE data scientists and engineers across a range of UvA faculties. In 2022, we awarded funding via the Accelerate Programme to 6 UvA faculties.
2023 call has now closed
We will soon announce the 2023 Accelerate Call recipients.
Testimonials from our Accelerate programme recipients
I am really happy to be part of the Data Science Centre. For instance, in September the Data Science Centre hosted a two-day hackathon in Zaandam – and those were two days of good fun. It is inspiring to see how scientists from different faculties and institutes within the University of Amsterdam use data science for their projects (from automatically detecting tiny eggs in microscope images to analysing Twitter data on air travel and climate). It is also a great way to interact with like-minded people and learn new skills. I also appreciate the possibility to attend workshops and work together on Fridays.Dr. Susan Vermeer, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences
I very much enjoyed the Friday Coffee & Data sessions organised by the Data Science Centre. It was amazing to see how big a role data science plays in so many projects around Faculties. I appreciate all the effort the DSC puts in to bring people together – it does really feel like a community because of it.Dr. Tessa Blanken, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences
The Accelerate program provides great opportunities for scientists in any field to delve into more advanced computation methodology. Accelerate program funding has allowed me to focus on diversifying my skillset as a data scientist. Being a DSC member allows me to encounter interesting problems from different fields.Dr. Julian Evans, Data Scientist at the Faculty of Science