Student Research Projects

The DDLitLab project looks back with pride on the successful establishment of student research groups with a focus on data literacy. In times of digital transformation and an ever-growing deluge of data, our aim was to enable students from all disciplines to develop data literacy not only in data collection, storage, analysis, and visualization, but also to critically question contemporary data practices. The goal was to embed data literacy as a central core competency of academic education and to give students the interdisciplinary opportunity to try out their own ideas in a protected, research-oriented space.

With a total of 77 participating students in 31 groups across four funding rounds, we were able to achieve exactly that. Our funding strategy: small student groups (2–5 members), accompanied by a subject-matter expert mentor, design their own research-oriented projects.

Numerous students benefited directly in their academic progress; some achieved important milestones in their bachelor’s or master’s programs, while others, thanks to the expertise they acquired, embarked on forward-looking careers as early-career researchers. Thanks to the funding—from the first round with eight projects (October 2022 to September 2023), through six projects in the second round (April 2023 to March 2024), ten in the third (October 2023 to March 2024), to seven final projects (October 2024 to September 2025)—we were able to build a diverse portfolio of data-oriented student research projects.