Unlocking the Hidden Power of Forgotten Data

Data is knowledge. Data is power. But too often, data is left behind — sitting on old servers, collecting digital dust.

In psychology and resilience research, large datasets are key to answering urgent questions: How do we protect mental health on a population level? New approaches like machine learning and network analysis thrive on big, long-term data. Yet collecting new data takes years and costs a fortune — time and money researchers don’t always have.

Here’s the good news: huge amounts of valuable data already exist. Past studies, with thousands of participants, are waiting to be rediscovered and reused. By harmonizing these datasets — aligning and combining them so they “speak the same language” — we can unlock new insights far faster.

In our recent project, published in the European Journal of Psychotraumatology, we brought together nine European samples with over 50,000 participants. We documented how to harmonize large-scale psychological data, tackled the common pitfalls, and shared tools for future researchers.

The message is simple: the answers we seek may already be in our hands — we just need to connect the dots.