Sixth edition of the European Big Data Hackathon in Brussels 11-15 March 2027
Please, let me know if you are interested in participating in the sixth edition of the European Big Data Hackathon (‘the Hackathon’) that will be held in Brussels from 11 to 15 March 2027, as a satellite event of the Conference New Techniques and Technologies for Statistics (NTTS 2027 https://cros.ec.europa.eu/NTTS2027]). This year, EMOS-labelled master programmes will again be able to nominate EMOS teams that will compete for a special EMOS hackathon prize.
EMOS teams’ registration
The teams should preferably count three members and can be composed of students enrolled and staff teaching in EMOS-labelled university programmes – from a single EMOS-labelled university programme or as a collaboration of several EMOS-labelled programmes, also across countries.
EMOS teams can be proposed until 30 September 2026
Travel and accommodation arrangements
The European Commission, in collaboration with its service provider, will arrange travel and accommodation in the hackathon venue for the time of the competition for all EMOS students accepted to the European Big Data Hackathon so that the students do not need to incur any costs in this regard.
Prize
Apart from being awarded a hackathon prize, the best EMOS team will also be given the opportunity to present their prototype at a plenary session of the NTTS conference on 16 March 2027.
Hackathon topic
To fully exploit the potential of web-based sources and its usage in the labour statistics domain, the focus of the 2027 edition of the Hackathon will be on Online Job Advertisements data.
Event outline and preparation
The hackathon will take place in Brussels, as an in-person four-day event and back-to back to the NTTS 2027 conference.
Teams will compete for the best application of novel, big and/or open data addressing a pressing European policy or statistical need. Information on the policy domain(s) and a catalogue of datasets will be provided in advance, while the specific data challenge will be announced at the beginning of the hackathon. After the challenge announcement, the teams will then work for about two-and-half days developing their prototype. In the last day of the work on their projects, the teams will have an opportunity to discuss them bilaterally with organizers and evaluators in ‘pre-evaluation’ meetings. At the end of the hacking time, the teams will have 7-10 minutes to present their data product/application to everyone. After the presentations, a panel of evaluators will rank proposed data products based on a set of criteria. The hackathon will finish with the announcement of the winner and up to five runners-up, selected from among the NSI hacking teams, and of an EMOS winning team, as well as audience prizes.
For information, you may also want to visit the dedicated website of the last hackathon edition: 2025 European Big Data Hackathon 2025 [https://cros.ec.europa.eu/2025EuropeanBigDataHackathon] - Earth Observation: from Space to European Statistics.
The 2027 edition of the hackathon presents again a unique opportunity for EMOS labelled programmes and their students to test their creativity as well as data analytics and visualisation skills, to meet and network with other EMOS students and practitioners from national statistical institutes from across the EU, and to possibly seek new inspiration for their study and career paths.
Published on: August 12 2026
