Graduate School for Data Science

The aim of the Graduate School is to make big data useable. That means, that huge amounts of data must be analysed and interpreted. Leading coordinator of the project is Fabian Theis, Professor for Mathematical Models of Biological Systems at the TUM Department for Mathematics.

"For great challenges, we need great solutions. For this project, we are bringing together important key-players from the greater Munich area and establishing a unique and strong resource for research and training, " says Theis, who is also the Director of the Institute for Computational Biology at the Helmholtz Zentrum München.

Data Science - combining implementation and methodology 

Why experts, who can evaluate such amounts of data are important, can be illustrated with a simple example: each cell in our bodies has the genetic material of roughly 3 billion base pairs - that is the equivalent of a library with 3000 books, each with 1000 pages on each of which 1000 letters are typed. In order to research individual cells, the help of intelligent algorithms is therefore essential. 

Doctorate students of the Graduate School combine Data Science with other sciences such as bio-medicine, plasma physics, robotics and earth observation. The bilateral projects are each created by bringing together a domain-specific application partner and a methodical partner. The first announcement for applications for PhD positions at the Graduate School will be published in December 2018. 

Since 2016, the TUM Department of Mathematics already offers the Masters course "Mathematics in Data Science", which also concentrates on teaching mathematical processes and algorithms for analysing big data. 

Munich School for Data Science - the Key-Players

The founders of the Munich School for Data Science are the Helmholtz Zentrum München, the Max-Planck-Institute for Plasmaphysics (IPP), the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the Technical University of  Munich (TUM) and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU). Two large computer centres are also involved, the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ) and the Max Planck Computing & Data Facility (MPCDF).

The Munich School for Data Science @ Helmholtz, TUM & LMU (MuDS) will be supported with a total of twelve million Euros over six years. Half of this sum comes from the participating institutions, the other half has been granted by the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres.