Population Scale Network Analysis for Social Sciences and Humanities (POPNET-SSH) -A Digital Infrastructure and Research Community

Population Scale Network Analysis for Social Sciences and Humanities (POPNET-SSH) -A Digital Infrastructure and Research Community

Applicant: dr. Eelke M. Heemskerk (University of Amsterdam)

This proposal embarks on an ambitious yet highly necessary and timely endeavour: the setting up of a novel open digital infrastructure and research community that unlocks longitudinal social network data on the entire population of the Netherlands. POPNET-SSH enables new exciting research on unique data consisting of demographic information and time-stamped family, work, school and neighborhood network relations in an anonymized as well as ethically and legally responsible manner.

The outcome is a research community centered around a first-of-a-kind research infrastructure tailored in terms of hard- and software for large-scale social network analysis. It for the first time allows scholars in the SSH domain (and beyond) without specialised technical computing skills to derive population-scale network statistics.

Rich methods from social network analysis and network science can then be applied to obtain unique insights that may unveil new and previously unknown knowledge about the complexity of the Dutch population. From this, scholars and policymakers alike can derive actionable insights into key issues in the SSH domain, including (but not limited to), stratification, segregation, substantive social change, and UN sustainable development goals such as reducing inequality.

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