International Symposium
“Big Data and STI Policy Decision-Making”
UNICAMP/InSySPo – July 18, 2023
Decision-making for allocating R&I resources is informed by data, often well-structured to create information, and less frequently well analyzed to result in knowledge. The harvesting of more data from multiple and quite diverse sources, popularly known nowadays as big or large data, has created immense expectations of opportunities and has opened major debates. Undeniably the availability of large amounts of diverse data and of data processing capabilities through modern techniques such as machine learning have opened a vast number of possibilities. Big data use opens new doors to understanding complexity. Big data provide real time information. Such data also offer rare opportunities to study research policy and strategy in new ways.
Still, challenges are aplenty. For our purposes the most obvious is how best to interrogate and meaningfully manage diverse kinds of data to support improved decision-making at both the public and private sectors. The databases continuously storing data will become larger and larger over time and applying big data analytical approaches will be inevitable. Big data are supposed to offer greater statistical power and higher false discovery rate. The introduction of big data in science has been the outcome of the intensification of digital means in research and of the massive use of mathematics and statistics by natural scientists to understand important aspects of the real world.
This Symposium will concentrate on how data and evidence are transforming research policy and strategy. Three keynote speeches by prominent international experts will present new developments (particularly focusing on new data and analytics) in the field of scientometrics and science of science. Two panels will debate the implications of such developments to the elaboration of policy for science and technology.
Place
Unicamp (main campus)
This is a hybrid event. It will be possible to also participate online.
Registrations
| 08:30 – 09:00 | Registration, coffee |
| 09:00-09:30 | Welcome – University President, IG Director, InSySPo Chair |
| 09:30-10:30 | Keynote 1 (& Q&A) – Cassidy Sugimoto (GATech) “Institutionalization of Inequities in Science”Introduction by Nick Vonortas (GW/UNICAMP) |
| 10:30-11:00 | Coffee Break |
| 11:00-12:00 | Keynote 2 (& Q&A) – Vincent Lariviere (UdeM) “How bibliometrics can inform science policy: the case of research funding”Introduction by Sergio Salles (UNICAMP) |
| 12:00-13:00 | Panel 1 (addressing keynotes) – Adriana Bin (UNICAMP), Roberto Marcondes (USP), Rodrigo Costas Comesana (ULeiden),AnaMaria Carneiro (UNICAMP) |
| 13:00-14:30 | Lunch Break |
| 14:30-15:30 | Keynote 3 (& Q&A) – Rodrigo Costas Comesana (ULeiden) “Making visible the invisible: how novel (and open) scientometric data sources can help us unveil new perspectives on science”Introduction by Sergio Queiroz (UNICAMP) |
| 15:30-17:00 | Panel 2 (lessons) – Cassidy Sugitomo (GATech), Vincent Lariviere (UdeM), Sergio Salles (UNICAMP), Euclides de Mesquita Neto (FAPESP) |
| 17:00-17:30 | Closing: Carlo Pietrobelli (UniRoma3/UM), Nick Vonortas (GW/UNICAMP) |
