WILDS Collaborative Projects

Are you a data-driven researcher looking to share your data and discoveries in a web application, bring more automation to your science, or transform analysis scripts into software, but you lack the time, resources, or skills in your group? Let us help! WILDS Collaborative Projects is our flagship partnership program. We work directly with researchers, principal investigators, and staff at Fred Hutch to co-design and build software tools that solve real-world scientific and operational challenges. This opportunity is provided at no cost to the teams we choose to partner with. We are happy to discuss a potential collaboration with anyone at Fred Hutch.

How to get started

Email us at wilds@fredhutch.org to express your interest.
We will send you an intake form to describe your idea in more detail.
We will then schedule a call to discuss your project goals and feasibility.
Together, we will develop a project proposal for approval.

Once the project proposal is approved by you and our leadership team, projects typically last three to eight months, depending on scope.

What projects are a good fit for WILDS Collaborative Projects?

We are more likely to be open to an opportunity to collaborate if the project you have in mind fits one or more of the following criteria:

The deliverables of the collaboration have potential applications beyond an individual lab or group, better yet if the potential value can extend beyond Fred Hutch.
The project will produce open source deliverables (e.g. Python or R packages), the project enables the distribution of open source or open license resources (e.g. datasets, websites), or the project leverages open source technologies.
Project deliverables include software packages written in Python or R that will be widely distributed.
The project leads to or includes the development of websites or interactive web applications that promote Fred Hutch’s Strategic Priorities.
The project can be well-scoped, meaning the deliverables and requirements can be defined in detail, and success can be clearly evaluated.

What to expect from a collaboration

WILDS Collaborative Projects are designed to be focused, time-bound partnerships. Our typical contributions include:

3–8 months of collaboration time, depending on project complexity.
A dedicated WILDS software, data scientist, or user experience researcher contributing roughly 20% effort.
Support for co-design, development, testing, and documentation of your software, web application, website, or resource.
Regular check-ins and progress reviews with your research team.

We prioritize projects that we can complete and deliver within that window rather than those requiring ongoing software maintenance or multi-year development. We are open to, although we cannot commit to in advance, iterations on prior collaborations that include maintenance work.

What might not be a good fit

To make the most of this opportunity, we generally do not select projects that:

Require creating a data analysis or models that describe patterns in a dataset. However, if you consistently receive hard to parse data, or you need to visualize the same data periodically, we could support you in building software to streamline your analysis.
Include building online computing platforms, where users could access high performance computing resources, or where users could upload their data for long term storage. We are happy to direct you to existing computing platforms that may fit your needs.

Continuous proposal review

This is an ongoing call for proposals and there is no specific deadline. We review ideas and start new collaborations throughout the year.

Ultimately, our goal is to build tools and resources that others can reuse, contribute to, and grow. By working together, we hope to create resources and software that supports research at Fred Hutch and amplifies our impact across the broader scientific community. Our team is excited to learn about your needs and ideas so we can explore what we can build together.