For more than a decade, the term “big data” has been used to describe the increasing volume of health information available to inform medical practice. However, for many, the question of how big data has changed the delivery of healthcare remains unanswered. In the field of spinal cord injury, big data is emerging as an important resource to: 1) examine factors that modify recovery from spinal cord injury, 2) improve the accuracy of early prognosis, and 3) perform stratification of patients for clinical trials. The aim of this introductory workshop, designed for clinical trialists, clinicians, researchers, and consumers, is to describe these existing applications, as well challenges and important areas of future research. After a brief introduction of workshop objectives and speakers, Dr. Adam Ferguson (PhD, University of California San Francisco) will outline the state of the art with regards to performing big data visualization and analysis (15 minutes). Dr. Ferguson will draw from his experience building the Open Data Commons for Spinal Cord Injury and the application of topographical data tools to inform the types of questions that can be addressed with big data, and how workshop participants can support big data clinical initiatives. Next, Dr. Armin Curt (MD, EMSCI, University Hospital Balgrist, University of Zurich) will provide a specific example of how big data analytics informed the design of an ongoing, acute spinal cord injury clinical trial (15 minutes). This will specifically discuss applications of machine learning in the European Multi-Center Study about Spinal Cord Injury. Dr. John Kramer (course chair) will then describe an ongoing initiative to maintain data from completed clinical trials for the purposes of secondary, big data analyses (15 minutes). His presentation will discuss the challenges of building a clinical trial repository, with specific reference to his laboratory’s experience merging data from the Sygen trial and Second National Acute Spinal Cord Injury Study. Finally, Dr. Catherine Jutzeler (PhD, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) will demonstrate the application of big data analytics to examine complex interactions between the acute management of spinal cord injury and long-term neurological outcomes (15 minutes). Each presentation will be followed by a 5-minute question period. At the conclusion of the workshop presentations, 10 minutes will be available for a summary panel discussion and any additional questions from participants. This will be moderated by Drs. Kramer and Dr. Curt. A handout will be made available to participants that summarizes key points of the workshop.