Bethan Blakeley: Bridging the gap

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Anyone who has read my articles (OK, rants) will know I’m very passionate about trying to bring analytics and research closer together – doing whatever I can, and taking tiny steps, to eliminate the current chasm between the fields and, more importantly, the people who sit in the two (often completely siloed) camps.

(I will warn you now, I refer to ‘analysts’ and ‘researchers’ here – and this is not the time or place to be debating analysts vs data scientists, or researchers vs insight specialists. That is another discussion for another day).

It turns out that I’m not on my own (breathes sigh of relief). The MRS, too, has decided this is important enough to become a focus and has created a sub-committee dedicated to this – the data analytics steering group. (Feel free to come back with ideas for more imaginative names!) The overarching, lofty purpose of the group is twofold:

1. Encourage and support those in the research industry to understand and collaborate more with ...