Datahub
About the Datahub
Whether you are looking for data, guidance on working with data, or inspiration for combining data across disciplines, welcome to the Datahub.
The Datahub fosters expertise, collaboration, and critical reflection around data and data-related research processes. Thematically, we focus on how human populations are affected by and respond to health challenges.
Acting as an incubator for collaboration within ITM, across Flanders, and beyond, we support researchers in navigating diverse forms of data across disciplines, populations, and contexts. We understand data as always situated: it carries the fingerprints of how it was gathered, where, by whom, and for what purpose.
Curious about what we do or interested in discussing your research? Get in touch!
Contact
Do you have questions about your methods or research design? We are happy to think along with you and your team. Don't hesitate to contact us.
About data
Within the Datahub, we engage with data throughout its lifecycle, from conceptualisation and collection to analysis, protection, and sharing. We are particularly interested in the often invisible processes and decisions that shape research behind the scenes. We recognise that researchers follow diverse trajectories when working with data, shaped by different contexts, constraints, and questions that do not always align in practice. The Datahub supports these trajectories through exchange, study, and peer learning.
We also recognise that data takes on different shapes and formats. To illustrate this diversity, we introduced Dataman, a dynamic, interactive cartoon figure that represents data as relational and evolving: images, memos, samples, maps, transcripts, genetic sequences, numbers, and more.
Our work
The Datahub focuses on the methods, expertise, and collaborations that make data meaningful. We bring together perspectives from different disciplines working in public health, support rigorous and reproducible research practices, and reflect critically on how matters of integrity, fairness, and equity influence research practice and shape population health data.
How we work
(1) Integrate data
Initiatives
(2) Analyse data
(3) Synthesise data
(4) Share data
Initiatives
(5) Theorise data
Initiatives
(6) Situate data
(7) Collect data
(8) Conceptualise data
Initiatives
(9) Appraise data
(10) Reflect about ethical implications of data
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(11) Visualise data
Initiatives
Incubator
The Datahub works as an incubator that connects to ongoing research and proposal development, focusing on the behind-the-scenes methodological and conceptual decisions that shape research. We are interested in how different choices in study design, data collection, and analysis carry different consequences, and in the trade-offs that emerge along the way. These include questions such as:
How can data be aggregated for analysis?
How can interdisciplinary studies be designed in a way that allows meaningful data integration?
How can researchers work with vulnerable groups without reinforcing stigma or marginalisation?
How might the use of AI affect practices of data generation, analysis, and protection?
Which statistical approaches are appropriate for a given research question, particularly when it comes to capturing heterogeneity and context?
Initiatives
The Datahub hosts several initiatives in which data play a specific role.