Advancing biomedical data science careers

Data and data science are transforming the world and data science expertise is in extremely high demand. Particularly within biomedical research, there is an urgent need for a shared framework of data functions, to enable skills mobility and recognition across different contexts (MRC strategic review 2022).

This project will enable organisations to incorporate data science skills into their teams and work culture by establishing a greater understanding of the common language needed to describe skills and careers in biomedical data science. We will enable cross-domain working so that collaborative team science approaches lead the future of biomedical research. Our proposal to advance biomedical data science careers will focus on three key objectives:

To evaluate skills gaps and identify priority areas for developing knowledge, skills and behaviours across the biomedical data science ecosystem.
2. To better understand roles, career pathways and team science approaches within the biomedical data science community and how these can improve access, resourcing and career offers.

3. To evaluate and recommend innovative approaches and ways of working that will drive forward capacity building and improve quality and standards in biomedical data science.

We will conduct an extensive landscape mapping exercise to evaluate the biomedical data science ecosystem in terms of competencies, skills, career pathways and team science approaches. This will constitute a comprehensive basis to improve the development of biomedical data science skills and career offers and, ultimately, support innovation to improve capacity, quality and standards in biomedical data science.

The Alan Turing Institute and EMBL's European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) are world leaders in biomedical data science with proven track records of innovative and impactful collaborative team science, and we will leverage existing cross-sector networks and interest groups to provide a wide range of...