From June 6 to June 24, 2022, the Public Policy in Africa Initiative will sponsor the Summer Institute in Computational Social Science, to be held at their Douala Office Headquarters. The purpose of the Summer Institute is to bring together graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and early career faculty members interested in computational social science. The Summer Institute is for both social scientists (broadly conceived) and data scientists (broadly conceived).
The instructional program will involve lectures, group problem sets, and participant-led research projects. There will also be outside speakers who are internationally recognised and who conduct computational social science research in a variety of settings. Topics covered include text as data, website scraping, digital field experiments, machine learning, 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 undergraduate students, Ph.D. students, postdoctoral researchers, and untenured faculty within 3 years of their Ph.D. and under the age of 35. We welcome applicants from all countries and regions of West and Central Africa, especially applicants from communities that traditionally do not have access to computational social science. About 20 participants will be invited, and participants are expected to fully attend and participate in the entire two-week program. If our fundraising efforts are successful, the institute could possibly be opened up to more participants to be announced in the future.
Application materials are due Friday, April 1, 2022 via the following form.
Because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently planning the summer institute to be hybrid in nature. The first week with pre-arrival programming will be conducted virtually via Zoom (with the option to come into the office and engage physically), and the formal 2 week program will be conducted in person at the Public Policy in Africa Initiative’s Douala office.