Data science: a game changer for science and innovation

TLDR

The paper argues that data science will drive disruptive innovation across science, industry, policy, and everyday life, while highlighting its ethical challenges and the need for open science and e‑infrastructure to train future data scientists. The authors propose the SoBigData Research Infrastructure, an open‑science e‑infrastructure platform that provides services to execute complex data‑science processes and model the complexity of our interconnected society. The study finds that data science will profoundly affect science and society, raising ethical concerns over human‑behavior data and promising significant economic impact.

Abstract

Abstract This paper shows data science’s potential for disruptive innovation in science, industry, policy, and people’s lives. We present how data science impacts science and society at large in the coming years, including ethical problems in managing human behavior data and considering the quantitative expectations of data science economic impact. We introduce concepts such as open science and e-infrastructure as useful tools for supporting ethical data science and training new generations of data scientists. Finally, this work outlines SoBigData Research Infrastructure as an easy-to-access platform for executing complex data science processes. The services proposed by SoBigData are aimed at using data science to understand the complexity of our contemporary, globally interconnected society.