March 4, 2016

Dear Colleagues:

The purpose of this Dear Colleague Letter is to announce that the National Science Foundation's Directorate for Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences is partnering in the Trans-Atlantic Platform 2016 Digging into Data Challenge (T-AP DiD). Digging into Data is a grant competition open to international, collaborative projects that address research questions in humanities and/or social science disciplines by using new, large-scale, digital data analysis techniques.

The Digging into Data Challenge has been funding cutting-edge digital research in the humanities and social sciences since 2009. Now under the auspices of T-AP, the program's fourth round of competition will support collaborative research teams from three continents: Europe (Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal and the United Kingdom); North America (Canada, Mexico, the United States); and South America (Brazil and Argentina).

T-AP is an unprecedented collaboration among key humanities and social science funders and facilitators from South America, North America and Europe. T-AP aims to enhance the ability of funders, research organizations and researchers to engage in transnational dialogue and collaboration. Among other activities, it works to identify common challenges and emerging priorities in social science and humanities research. T-AP also facilitates the formation of networks within the social sciences and humanities and helps connect them with other disciplines.

The funding opportunity is open to international projects that consist of teams from at least three participating T-AP Digging into Data countries, and must include partners from both sides of the Atlantic, i.e., from Europe and the Americas. Research partners will receive funding from their own national funding agencies for projects of up to 36 months in duration.

All projects must address a research question in humanities and/or social science disciplines by using large-scale, digital data analysis. The T-AP Digging into Data Challenge specifically aims to advance multidisciplinary collaborative projects in digital scholarship that seek new perspectives and insights, utilizing any data source or computer science techniques to do so.

Additional information about this transatlantic funding opportunity — including links to application details — will be available on the DiD application website as of March 1, 2016. Interested researchers should review the website for details about the competition and see the list of previous awards on the site for information as to what research areas have been supported in previous rounds.

Questions should be directed to the NSF program officer for the T-AP Digging into Data Challenge, Joan Maling.

Sincerely,

Dr. Fay Lomax Cook
Assistant Director
Directorate for Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences