Small Data Projects

DANS Subsidy for Small Data Projects

Small data projects can focus on describing one or more important data sets and making them accessible. They can also be feasibility studies or explorations in the field of data-to-data archiving in a new area, discipline or data format. But projects can also be pilots on new ways to archive or make research data accessible.

Since 2006 DANS has organised application rounds for the submission of proposals for these small data projects. In that year a budget of 50,000 Euro was made available which from 2007 onwards has be increased to 100.000 Euro a year. The maximum budget per project application is 10,000 Euro (including VAT if applicable).

The subsidies for small data projects are mostly targeted on sub-areas in which there are at presently gaps in the field of archiving, and which are of particular importance to DANS’ strategy. This way we can respond directly to signals from the field that may result from inventories held by DANS.

Have you got ideas for small data projects or do you believe there is a large gap in your field where archiving is concerned? Then please feel free to invite a DANS staff member to discuss these problems with you. Aside from providing subsidies, DANS could also be of use to you by, for instance, deploying personnel to specific archiving projects.

Project proposals can be submitted by scientists working for Dutch scientific research facilities and KNAW and/or NWO institutions.

Project proposals need to include sufficient information regarding the proposed activities.

Data generated from the project should amongst others be deposited/ archived at DANS.

Project proposals will be reviewed by DANS management. They will rank the proposals using the following criteria:

Scientific interest
Range (cooperating partners, target group, disciplines)
Project organisation

Allocation of budget is based on the order of ranking, until the budget is depleted.

At the latest two months after applying petitioners are informed on their eligibility for financing.

Project proposals need to be submitted per mail or email while making use of the Word template.

For more information please contact DANS.

Contact: Gaithrie Ganesh T +31(0)70 3446 484 E gaithrie.ganesh [at] dans.knaw.nl

You'll find some examples of Small Data Projects by DANS below:

War Love Child - Dutch soldier's children

The digitization of important additional private documents as complementary source material pertaining to the oral history AV data sets of the project War Love Child (funded by Ministry of Health Welfare and Sport as part of Heritage of War, Witnesses Accounts) which were deposited at DANS end 2009. This KDP project contains a wealth of material that support and illustrate the stories of respondents, such as birth certificates, engagement cards from their military father and Indonesian mother, diaries, declarations on marital status, personal correspondence, photographs, documents from orphanages where the children grew up, data on the search for the father's, etc. These personal documents are additional data sets to the interviews and transcriptions deposited at DANS in 2009.

Visualization occupation census count

This project responds to the growing interest, both internationally and nationally, to data visualization as a means to better understand research data. It lies in the expectation that new, more visual, methods for presenting data in the future will also prove to be important for the provision of research material in the data archives of DANS. This project aims to experiment with visualization of data in a dataset so to gain experience for future developments.

ROA - Coupling between training classifications (2006)

The project ‘Coupling between training classifications’ integrated a number of common training classifications in one database. The development of the database was carried out by the Researchcentrum voor Onderwijs en Arbeidsmarkt (ROA) and financed by the DANS KDP Fund.

Unlocking OSA Labor Demand Panel (2007)

The Labor Demand Panel of the Institute for Labour Studies (OSA), is a longitudinal panel survey among offices of Dutch companies and institutions. Thanks to extra financing from the DANS KDP Fund, this unique file was made accessible to a larger group of researchers.

Making data available Jeugd&Cultuur Project (2007)

Owing to a subsidy from the DANS KDP Fund, a large and important panel file with data on approximately 7500 pupils and consisting of more than thirty data files in a user-friendly manner was made available for secondary analysis.