Since its launch in October 2014, the Competence Center for Scalable Data Services and Solutions (ScaDS) Dresden/Leipzig carries out collaborative research on Big Data methods and their use in challenging data science applications of different domains, leading to both general, and application-specific solutions and services. In this article, we give an overview about the structure of the competence center, its primary goals and research directions. Furthermore, we outline selected research results on scalable data platforms, distributed graph analytics, data augmentation and integration and visual analytics. We also briefly report on planned activities for the second funding period (2018-2021) of the center.