Columbia University and business information provider Thomson Reuters, US, have announced the launch of the Advanced Data Visualization Project (ADVP). The project, based at Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), will be sponsored by Thomson Reuters. It is projected to facilitate research into data visualisation and its implications for academia and industry.
Data visualisation is seen as an important mechanism that allows decision makers to gain critical insights and mine and navigate relationships between data sets. The partnership is expected to combine Thomson Reuters content and industry expertise with Columbia University researchers’ expertise to meaningfully define data visualisation across disciplines.
Although based at the GSAPP, the project will explore data visualisation applications in various fields including journalism, science, medicine and public health, law, architecture, planning and political science. It will utilise experts from the University, Thomson Reuters and outside researchers. Thomson Reuters will be actively engaged with the programme and lead one of six flagship visualisation projects.
The first year of the ADVP will serve to establish the basic platform for a wider range of large scale experiments to be carried out over the following two years, culminating in the establishment of a University-wide Institute for Advanced Data Visualization at Columbia University. The first few years of the programme will also serve to produce a definitive edited volume of exhibited experimental work that will become a guide to understand this evolving field.
At the Aspen Ideas Festival, Thomson Reuters CTO James Powell will moderate a discussion between the project’s progenitors, GSAPP Dean Mark Wigley and Ed Schlossberg, adjunct Professor at GSAPP, entitled “Information’s Beautiful Future.” The panel will explore the potential of data visualisation to harness and communicate information clearly and dynamically.
