"What I am in fact doing all day is solving all kinds of puzzles." Ron Scholten is data manager at Research Data Management Support. "In addition I examine how to improve work flow efficiency. Data management is an added bonus for scientists. It is our job to support them in processing data, so that they can focus on the essence of their work."
"Within the YOUth research project I help with all kinds of generic issues scientists contend with." Ron Scholten is a member of the data management pool. From this pool, data managers are temporarily seconded to a faculty or research project to help with data management issues. This also applies to Scholten who works three and a half days a week at the Child Expertise Center on the Uithof. There he assists in this large-scale research.
A research umbrella
"You could look at YOUth as a kind of big umbrella. It includes research that sheds light on the interaction between brain development and environmental influences on the one hand and behaviour on the other hand. Behaviour is the explanatory variable. But in that sense YOUth is also very different. Under normal circumstances you have a research question and then you search for data. The researchers collect a lot of data to find out how brains and behaviour influence one another. However, they must fall under that big umbrella I just mentioned."
From pregnancy to puberty
"At YOUth I help in collecting data resulting from all kinds of experiments researchers carry out there. YOUth distinguishes two cohorts: one that runs from pregnancy to the time a child is six or seven years old, the other one starts when the child is eight or nine years old. These children participate until they are fifteen or sixteen. Also the parents are part of the research population. In total the researchers collect data from 3000 parents and their children, for the second cohort, the one starting at children from the age of nine, they are also looking for 3000 children and their parents."