Bern Data Science Initiative

The Bern Data Science Initiative, BeDSI, is an initiative of data driven research groups and research centres of the University of Bern which aims at the following objectives:

1.  showcasing the wide range and diversity of data or simulation intensive research and the sciences of data science across UniBe within the university, the canton, nationally and internationally, 
2. installing a flexible structure beyond institute or faculty borders to connect data driven research groups with their different data types, sources (experiments/simulations), approaches and techniques to foster collaboration,
3. inciting innovative research projects in cutting edge data science topics;
4. sustaining and promoting multidisciplinary high-end research infrastructures and services offering scientific expertise to boost data or simulation driven research at UniBe at all levels,
5. establishing a scientific and scholarly forum for the discussion of the impact, both positive and negative, of the rapid growth of possible applications of data and simulation driven research for the society.

As a research-oriented university and member of The Guild universities, the University of Bern has an impressive past record of data driven research, which includes internationally renowned flagship research in Climate Science, Space Science, and High Energy Physics. Within the last years, the rapid developments in data science have sparked many new fascinating research activities across UniBe. They range from larger Centres such as the Microscopy Imaging Centre, MIC, or the Centre for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, CAIM, to individual research groups in areas that transition into data intensive ones such as geography, linguistics, or the humanities. Massive data sets in digital form from experiments, simulations and human lives have become a key source of information for research in all disciplines.  The sciences of data science at UniBe will play a crucial role in coping with all these fascinating challenges. As a full university, UniBe has a unique chance to excel in connecting human-centred sciences with exact or technology-centred sciences.

The Bern Data Science Initiative, BeDSI, is designed to weave a flexible network lead by scientists into the university’s traditional structures to foster the work of data and simulation driven research groups. Very much like in a body whose stability relies on the bones and whose functionality is based on the muscles, the neural network with its high connectivity, flexibility and adaptivity is the decisive power to be able to perform complex tasks.