Computational social science

The Data Innovation Research Institute was open between 2015 and 2021. This page shows the Institute’s past work. It is not monitored or updated.

As humans increase their use of technology for both business and pleasure, so does the size of the digital footprint they leave behind. This data is a rich source for study as it provides a unique perspective on social and human behaviour.

Broadly known as computational social science, it includes aspects of anthropology, ethnography, business, journalism and other humanities.

Arts, humanities and social sciences

It is envisaged that many future discoveries in the arts, humanities and social sciences will have a data-driven component. Our institute is currently working closely with colleagues in the Cardiff Business School, Law School and WISERD to exploit opportunities for data-driven innovation in computational social science. Interacting with key researchers, we work closely and collaboratively, focusing on their unstructured data driven problems.

Research Institute seedcorn funding

Our Research Institute seedcorn funding and Research Software Engineers have contributed to a number of projects over the last three years including:

• Social Data Science Lab
• EU SOCIALNETS and RECOGNITION projects
• "Lost Visions" project

These projects emphasise the importance of putting social scientists in close collaboration with computer scientists and Research Software Engineers to ensure that the outcomes of the work are relevant to both communities.

Work undertaken in this area also identifies the necessity to bring in empirical studies of offline analysis into online behaviours to undertake comparative analysis. Research here will lead to new algorithm development that can be used for the analysis of emerging online data.