Evaluation of the Moore-Sloan Data Science Environments - Final Report

The goal of the Moore-Sloan Data Science Environments (MSDSE) program, established jointly by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, is to create positive conditions for data-driven discovery at academic institutions. In 2014, the program funded three data science environments: the Berkeley Institute for Data Science (BIDS) at the University of California Berkeley, the Center for Data Science (CDS) at the New York University, and the eScience Institute (eScience) at the University ofWashington. Each university received $12.5 million to support the environments for five years.

In 2015, the Foundations contracted with Abt Associates to conduct a 3-year evaluation of the MSDSE program. The study drew on several sources: review of MSDSE reports, websites, and policy papers; three site visits to each university; 132 interviews and two on line surveys of participants and non-participants; and observations at three Data Summits. In addition, we examined the broader data science landscape by interviewing the leaders of 17 entities similar to MSDSEs about their efforts.