Grant for initiative to digitally share description of data for youth research

How can scientists researching the development of children cooperate accurately? One way is to use a uniform format for describing all of the data they have collected over the years for their research projects, and to share these data. Six long-term Dutch youth research groups will be making this transition in CD² (Connecting Data in Child Development). This initiative, which was started at Utrecht University, has received a grant of EUR 639,426 from the Platform Digitale Infrastructuur Social Science and Humanities (PDI-SSH).

The six longitudinal youth cohorts, as they are known, (see the bottom of this message to find out which cohorts are involved) that are taking part in this initiative each spent the past few years separately gathering a wealth of information. This includes data on social, psychological and biomedical developments during childhood, adolescence and afterwards. For these cohorts, there was no generally accepted description format for the separate data they had collected, until now.

Harmonisation

Within the CD² project, the varying data used by the different research groups to describe the data, also known as metadata, will be harmonised, making the complete collection searchable by different researchers. Otto Lange (metadata expert at the Utrecht University Library) will be working on this for the foreseeable future. Lange has already emphasised the need to harmonise metadata in a previously recorded webinar, as it is the only way for all researchers with access to the new digital infrastructure to make the best possible use of the wealth of available scientific data on child development.

The grant application to the Platform Digitale Infrastructuur Social Science and Humanities was submitted by Chantal Kemner, professor of Biological Developmental Psychology at Utrecht University, head researcher of YOUth and driver of the CID gravity consortium, together with Lotte Houtepen (CID project manager).

The six youth cohorts working together within the project are: YOUth, L-CID, RADAR, NTR, TRAILS and Generation R.