Abstract

One of the most important challenges of the emerging Information Age is to effectively utilise the immense wealth of information and data acquired, computed and stored by modern information systems. On the one hand, the appropriate use of available information volumes offers large potential to realize technological progress and business success. On the other hand, there exists the severe danger that users and analysts easily get lost in irrelevant, or inappropriately processed or presented information, a problem which is generally called the information overload problem. Visual Analytics is an emerging research discipline developing technology to make the best possible use of huge information loads in a wide variety of applications. The basic idea is to appropriately combine the strengths of intelligent automatic data analysis with the visual perception and analysis capabilities of the human user.We propose a Coordination Action to join European academic and industrial RandD excellence from several individual disciplines, forming a strong Visual Analytics research community. An array of thematic working groups set up by this consortium will focus on advancing the state of the art in Visual Analytics. Specifically, the working groups will join excellence in the fields of data management, data analysis, spatial-temporal data, and human visual perception research with the wider visualisation research community. This Coordination Action will (1.) form and shape a strong European Visual Analytics community, (2.) define the European Visual Analytics Research Roadmap, (3.) expose public and private stakeholders to Visual Analytics technology and (4.) set the stage for larger follow-up Visual Analytics research initiatives in Europe.