Tag: social network analysis

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SoNAR 2019 international workshop

The international workshop Social Network Analysis in Romania – SoNAR 2019 is organized by the Research Group on Graphs and Social Networks (GraphNets – an interdisciplinary research group of the University of Bucharest).

SoNAR 2019 is the third scientific event focused on social network analysis and organized by GraphNets, in Romania. In 2017, GraphNets, in collaboration with the Research Institute of the University of Bucharest and the Max Plank Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG), organized the international workshop on Graphs, networks and digital humanities. In 2018, GraphNets organized the international workshop Analyzing multiple networks from diverse perspectives – the workshops took place in Timișoara and Bucharest.

SoNAR 2019 revolves around the study of large networks (data collection, processing and analysis) and hosts lectures, presentations and a round table on various topics such as, for instance, co-authorship networks, transnational networks, or intra-organizational networks. Additionally, in the context of social network analysis, two important issues are also addressed: the means for data mining and processing as well as the mixture between machine learning and social statistics.

The keynote address at the SoNAR 2019 is given by Jürgen Lerner (University of Konstanz, Germany). Jürgen Lerner is professor of algorithms with specific research interests in the area of social network analysis, open peer-production, networks with positive and negative ties, computational social science and statistical network modelling.  

During SoNAR 2019, preliminary results of the iCoNiC research project will be reported. These results will be afterwards explored and discussed under the format of a round table. This input is expected to support policy-makers and university top management, in Romania or EU, in tailoring their public policies’ formulations in the field of science.

The booklet is available here.

SoNAR 2019 is endorsed by the Faculty of Sociology and Social Work (The University of Bucharest), the Research Institute of the University of Bucharest (the Social Science Division). The organization of SoNAR 2019 is also supported by the Research Center in Applied Ethics.

SoNAR 2019 is supported by the Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding (UEFISCDI) through the research grant Longitudinal analysis of coauthorship networks and citations in academia (iCoNiC) – code: PN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2016-0362 (details on https://iconic.unibuc.ro/)

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Interview with Marian-Gabriel Hâncean

“Recognizing the effort of a researcher is a very important matter, and research leads to innovation.” This is the key point made by Marian-Gabriel Hâncean during his interview for MediaUB, the University news outlet. In 2017, Gabriel won the award for The most prestigious article in Social Sciences section, given by the Senate members of University of Bucharest. The interview, in Romanian, can be accessed here.

The award was offered for his article “Homophily in co-authorship networks of East European sociologists“, published in 2016 in Nature-Scientific Reports. Gabriel talked about how important is social recognition for a researcher, pointing out that in social sciences you can gain visibility generally in two ways: by citation in internationally well-documented journals, and by the impact your research results could have on public policy. He stressed out that it is important to keep in mind that, in fact, it is not the researchers who should receive international recognition, but the results of their work.

Gabriel explained the framework for his article, starting with naming the countries upon he performed the analysis and the scientific domain he was referring to. Romania, Poland and Slovenia were three countries from East Europe he analyzed, all chosen by percentage of GDP given for Research, Development and Innovation sector. Sociologists were in his focus. His analysis points out that there are many practices performed by researchers in order to collaborate. For example, it seems that there is a tendency for visible researchers to collaborate with researchers who in turn also have high visibility, a phenomenon called homophily. On the other hand, there is a tendency for less visible authors to try to co-author with significant researchers in order to benefit from the image of the latter. Looking at Romania, Slovenia and Poland, he observed a mix of practices: on the one hand, the social effect of homophily selection was identified and, on the other hand, the Matthew effect (“the rich become richer”).

Gabriel also talked about his two most important ongoing projects: iCoNic (implemented together with GraphNets Research Group) and Orbits (implemented together with Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona). GraphNets is an interdisciplinary Research Group made of academics, master students and PhD. candidates, coordinated by Gabriel. GraphNets has a functional formal structure, being affiliated to ICUB (The Research Institute of the University of Bucharest).

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Whole, personal or egocentric networks?

We had the pleasure to listen to Professor José Luis Molina from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, in Timișoara. He gave an inspiring keynote address titled Whole, personal or egocentric networks? What do we know about personal networks and why it matters. The talk about social networks was linked to the concept of liquid society which refers to emergent, changing social structures, which are partially based on agency and personal interactions.

During his talk, professor Molina pointed out that the study of egocentric/personal networks is especially suited for identifying such structures, linking places within and across nations, and networks of organizations or institutions. Egocentric/personal networks informed social network thinking from its inception but just recently the availability of personal network data with both strong and weak ties have contributed to the development of a growing number of contributions in this area.

Nevertheless, in order to fully develop this approach is necessary to distinguish between egocentric (small number of alters), and personal networks (large number of alters). Thus, while egocentric networks are especially useful for social support and health applications, he contended that personal networks are better suited for the study of emergent social structures.

Drawing on more than a decade of research collecting personal networks with a large number of alters, the presentation aims to take stock of the main lessons learned, and reflect upon the theoretical contribution of personal networks to the understanding of social structures and its dynamics.

The talk was held at the West University of Timișoara, Romania, on September, 15.

The presentation delivered at the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Sociology and Social Work, Romania, on September, 17, can be seen below.

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ICONIC on air at the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Corporation

Gabriel Hâncean, the principal investigator of the iCoNic project, was invited by Corina Negrea, science journalist, to give an interview on social networks in general, and about iCoNic project in particular, for Radio România Cultural, the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Corporation’s second national channel. Gabriel also talked about the activities that will take place soon both in Timișoara, at the Romanian Sociologist Association Conference Living in a Liquid Society and in Bucharest, at the Faculty of Sociology and Social Work. All of these are part of the iCoNic international workshop Analyzing multiple networks from diverse perspectives, a series of conferences about the influence of social networks.

Firstly, Gabriel talked about what are social networks and how they shape our day-by-day life. People are different, so our social networks. What it counts here is that individuals are their own engineers of their social web (composed by social ties) and that they have the power to control the possibilities and opportunities given by being part of a social network. Studying this type of subjects represents what GraphNets, the research group on graphs and social networks, does in its scientific research activity.

Secondly, he discussed the main objectives of the iCoNic project. The main research objective is to assess the extent to which co-authorship relations (structures) positively impact on the university researchers’ distributions of citations, in a longitudinal framework. He pointed out that in Romanian academic structures, there are few researchers who collaborate to each other and it becomes harder and harder to get funding in order to perform research.

The interview (in Romanian) is online here.