Data Science

Many call for a systematic publication of scientific negative results in order to make the production of scientific knowledge more efficient. Raphaël Lévy, Assistant Professor in the Economics and Decision Sciences Department, explains why such dissemination of knowledge may actually be beneficial, but also points to potential undesired consequences.

Legal Data Mining Conference gathered professionals and academics from the technology, Artificial Intelligence and Law fields to discuss the future of Law. The two-day workshop focused on both the fundamental and practical issues of legal data mining. The event was organized by David Restrepo Amariles (Assistant Professor of Law at HEC Paris) and Ken Satoh (Professor at the National Institute of Informatics of Japan) in March 2019 at the Barreau de Paris.

While scientific findings need to be assessed by peers and journal referees, the confidentiality of original data often makes the process arduous. An accredited organization launched by Christophe Pérignon (HEC Paris) and colleagues with access to the original research data can now ensure reproducibility of results. This not only promises huge gains in time and effort for researchers but will also shore up trust in scientific results.

Based on his recent research and work for the EU Commission, "Unlocking Privately-Held Data to Create Public Value", Alberto Alemanno, Professor of European Union Law and Regulation at HEC Paris, discusses the concept of "Data for Good", whereby private data such as those collected by social media, telecoms and banks, can be shared with public authorities so as to save lives, such as in natural disasters, and improve them through better designed and more effective policies.

In the following interview, two researchers at HEC Paris, Professor of Marketing Peter Ebbes and CNRS Research Professor Emmanuel Kemel, explain how they use the web apps R and Shiny*, to visualize results of data analysis, to help students in understanding the formulas used for those analysis, and to help disseminate the research among academics and practitioners.

Big data has been a key challenge for many sectors or industries such as aeronautical, transport, consultancy, banking and insurance, energy, telecommunication and, of course, digital, e-commerce and media. 3 billion internet users generate 50 Trillion objects (To) of data per second, a figure which is set to increase forty-fold by 2020. Today, the development of analytical skills for business and management has become a necessity. To respond to this need, HEC Paris is investing with a new joint Master Big Data for Business in collaboration with l’Ecole Polytechnique, set to begin in September 2017. It will provide students with the tools necessary to transform the data into useful knowledge and strategic decisions. After all, even Harvard Business Review has dubbed the occupation of data scientist “The Sexiest Job of the 21st Century”…

This special issue of Knowledge@HEC highlights several research projects and teaching initiatives at HEC Paris in the context of big data and business analytics. Nowadays it does not take much to convince students or managers alike of the importance of data for businesses. As Wedel and Kannan (2016) put it, “data is the oil of the digital economy”. Indeed, data is completely transforming organizations, and data-driven decision making is becoming more and more a part of a company’s core. In an increasing digital world, all of us are walking data generators, leaving long data trails: we have more data on everything.