Stevens Institute of Technology and Accenture management consulting have launched a joint project to conduct analytics research for the financial services industry, Stevens announced Wednesday.

As part of the collaboration, Stevens, a private university in Hoboken, N.J., will offer a Financial Services Analytics Graduate Certificate Program in 2015. The three-year collaboration will include analytics research projects and workshop sessions with Accenture’s financial services clients.

Qualified students will be able to participate in internships with Accenture and other leading firms. Scholarships funded by Accenture will be awarded to two students per year to cover tuition and fees for the FSA graduate certificate.

One of the main big-data challenges organizations are facing is the lack of talent to implement and run big data and analytics, according to Accenture. For the financial services industry, the demand for professionals with credentials in financial services analytics is strong, and it is growing at a rapid pace, Accenture says.

“Finding and accessing analytics talent will require innovative sourcing strategies to bridge the gap between supply and demand,” says John DelSanto, senior managing director for Accenture’s Financial Services group in North America.

“During this ‘century of complexity,’ our ability to understand and analyze data with perceptive questions in mind, supported by our ability to visualize the results of our analysis to allow strategic insights and critical decision-making, will be a key competitive discriminator for all organizations—commercial, government and academic,” says Dinesh Verma, dean of the School of Systems and Enterprises at Stevens.