Important update: Due to Covid-19, we are switching to a virtual SICSS-Maastricht. Therefore, we also decided to re-open the application process. New deadline: May 5, 2020. More information on the new schedule will be posted soon!
From June 14 to June 26, the Maastricht Law & Tech Lab will be hosting the Summer Institute in Computational Social Science Maastricht (SICSS-Maastricht). The purpose of the Summer Institute is to bring together graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and beginning faculty interested in computational social science. SICSS-Maastricht is for legal researchers, social scientists (broadly conceived) and data scientists (broadly conceived). SICSS-Maastricht is unique among partner locations in its focus on legal data, both from the perspective of collection as well as analysis . Throughout the duration of the Institute in Maastricht, we will explore how computational methods can be applied to legal research questions.
The instructional program will involve lectures, group problem sets, and participant-led research projects. There will also be outside speakers who conduct computational social science research in a variety of settings, such as academia, industry, and government. Topics covered include text as data, website scraping, digital field experiments, non-probability sampling, mass collaboration, and ethics. There will be ample opportunities for students to discuss their ideas and research with the organizers, other participants, and visiting speakers. Because we are committed to open and reproducible research, all materials created by faculty and students for the Summer Institute will be released open source.
Participation is restricted to Ph.D. students, postdoctoral researchers, and untenured faculty within 7 years of their Ph.D. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and fields of study, especially applicants from law and other groups currently under-represented in computational social science. We particularly encourage participants from Central and Eastern Europe to apply to SICSS-Maastricht. About twenty participants will be invited, and participants are expected to fully attend and participate in the entire two-week program.