Working in an interdisciplinary research and application space brings about unique challenges. People working at the intersection of Data Science and Health Equity are spread across various institutions, departments and focus areas. Many of us rely on word of mouth and shared connections to find relevant collaborators. To change this, we are pooling our efforts to create a database of our joint network and beyond: a dynamic landscape of people involved in research and work on Statistical Methods for Health Equity. Thereby expanding all of our connections and strengthening the community. Imagine having access to the research relations of the best-connected people in your field. Knowing who to contact can make life so much more efficient.

To kick this project off, we are inviting existing members of our community to come together in a virtual event to discuss how we will need to design such a landscape database to suit our needs. We will talk about which metadata attributes are needed ("institution", "country", "areas of expertise", "key papers", ...), how we can set it up in a sustainable manner and what the main uses of it could be. We will then start populating the skeleton database with research/work connections from the people attending the kick-off. The landscape will be dynamic and continually growing with new additions. For this, we will also brainstorm ideas on how to update it efficiently.

Any questions - email b.lehmann@ucl.ac.uk!