Blog

At SmallData, we are passionate about advancing knowledge and promoting innovation in the field of small data. Our events play a key role in this mission by bringing together leading experts, pioneering researchers, and enthusiastic learners. Through our lectures, seminars, and workshops, we explore and develop small data research and methodologies. By subscribing to our […]

On October 1, members of the CRC Small Data and international researchers came together for the SmallData Symposium 2026, organized in collaboration with ISCB GMDS 2026. Our spokesperson, Harald Binder, welcomed participants and shared his vision for the future of small data research, before introducing our doctoral researcher Max Behrens, who chaired the first session: Similarity. The session […]

Congratulations to Carola Heinzel (C01) from the Department of Mathematical Stochastics at the University of Freiburg, who successfully defended her doctoral thesis on September 3, 2026! Carola’s graduation is a particularly special moment since she is the first SMART doctoral researcher to graduate. She joined us right at the very beginning, when CRC Small Data officially started. We at SMART are […]

On August 6, 2026, SMART hosted the course Argumentative Writing in Academic Research, led by Kai Hüwelmeyer from the Institut für Argumentationskompetenz. The trainer connected formal reasoning with practical argumentative writing for a highly interdisciplinary group, showing how clear argument structure can help researchers communicate complex ideas across disciplinary boundaries. The course aimed at equipping […]

On July 31, 2026, SMART Master Lab Cohort 3.0 came together for its guided poster tour and send-off event. The session marked the conclusion of the current Master Lab round, which began with the kick-off day on May 4, 2026. Over the course of the program, students worked on research questions connected to current SmallData […]

How can academics use large language models in writing without giving up originality, rigor, or accountability? This was the central question at the workshop “Responsible Use of LLMs in Academic Writing”, held on Monday, July 20, 2026, at the Hörsaal Rundbau in Freiburg. The event brought together perspectives from dissertation research, manuscript preparation, scholarly publishing, […]

The Autumn School “Facing the Gender Data Gap” (October 6–10, 2025), a joint initiative of the Centre of Anthropology and Gender Studies, the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Freiburg, the Gender Equality Office of the Faculty of Medicine, and the CRC 1597 Small Data, has been awarded the Bertha Ottenstein Prize 2026! […]

The 43rd International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) took place on July 6–11, 2026, in Seoul, South Korea. We’re proud to announce that SmallData researchers took the opportunity to showcase their work in this prestigious conference. “End-to-End Compression for Tabular Foundation Models” by our PI Josif Grabocka and our doctoral researcher Guri Zabërgja was selected as a spotlight, which represents the top […]

From June 29 to July 1, our doctoral researchers came together in the Black Forest for the SMART Retreat 2026. In preparation for this year’s SMART Retreat, early career researchers met on June 18 to pitch a rich variety of topics for the Writing/Coding/Collaboration/Discussion (WCCD) sessions. During this preparation meeting, the pitches were refined: topics […]

How can academics use large language models (LLMs) responsibly without compromising originality, rigor, or trust? This workshop brings together perspectives from dissertation research, manuscript preparation, scholarly publishing, and mathematics to explore how LLMs are changing academic writing. Speakers will discuss how AI tools can support learning, critical thinking, innovation, and more efficient writing processes, while […]

The British Journal of Dermatology (BJD) has published a research article authored by our PIs Cristina Has, Moritz Hess and Harald Binder, together with our doctoral researcher Hanning Yang, and our postdoctoral researcher, Meropi Karakioulaki. The study titled “Systemic inflammation in recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa: a five-year longitudinal study” is the first to map longitudinal trajectories of systemic inflammation markers and their clinical associations in […]