I was wondering (about a more semantic question), is there a difference between data-driven methods and machine learning? Or is it more correct to state that machine learning is a category of data-driven methods (and what then are other categories)? 
What is the difference between data-driven methods and machine learning?
machine learning;data mining;data
Based on the quotation you have added in your comments, data-driven approaches are approaches where you use data that describes past states (historical data) to get a (not defined) system to give a desired output.To understand whether this definition includes machine learning or not we will have to define machine learning, and while there could be plenty of ways to define it I expect that it will be quite difficult to come up with a definition that does not include within it Using a system that, based on given states will give a desired output.Note that in this last definition I use given states and not past states as to include approaches such as online learning.Bottom line is that unless you really want to hold to a narrow definition of past states it seems that machine learning approaches are a subset of data-driven approaches.