August 20 to September 2, 2023 | Regional Institute for Population Studies, University of Ghana
Participation is open to PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, untenured faculty within five years of their PhD. There are no restrictions based on citizenship, country of study, or employment, but we will prioritise applicants from African countries. There is no registration fee for participating in SICSS-Accra, and most of the costs will be covered. The language of instruction will be English.
We welcome applicants from all backgrounds, fields of study, and countries within Africa. We strongly encourage women and other minority groups to apply. About 20 participants will be invited, and participants are expected to fully attend, participate, and engage in the entire program.
Participants with less experience with social science research will be expected to complete additional readings in advance of the Institute. Participants with less coding experience will be expected to complete a set of online learning modules on the R programming language. Students requiring this preparatory work will be supported by a teaching assistant who will hold online office hours two months before the Institute.
Applications will be evaluated based on:
Applicants must submit the following documents:
We will formally start receiving applications from 27 January 2023 until March 18 March 31, 2023. In order to be guaranteed full consideration, all application materials must be submitted online via https://forms.gle/QUVcagQyFHucGoMD6. Applications that are not complete by the deadline may not receive full consideration. We will notify applicants solely through e-mail by April 10 April 17, 2023 and ask participants to confirm their participation soon after.
Inquiries can be sent to sicss@rips-ug.edu.gh
The summer institute is targeted at doctoral students, post-docs, and early career researchers interested in applying computational methods to address critical challenges on the African continent. Given the limited amount of funding available, we will only select excellent candidates with the potential to make the most out of the programme and candidates who have the potential to advance the field of computational social science on the African continent.
SICSS-Accra is planned to be an entry-level programme in computational social science. We will lay a solid foundation for computational social science during the summer institute through several activities such as invited lectures, research happy hour, tutorials and participant-led group research projects. You can read our experience organizing SICSS-Covenant 2022 here: https://sicss.io/2022/post-mortem#covenant-university
Some previous coding experience is highly recommended to make the most out of the summer institute. However, this should not discourage you from applying as we aim to enrol all accepted participants with limited coding experience in our coding bootcamp. During the bootcamp, we will introduce you to R-programming and support you in enriching your programming skills before the summer institute.
There is no registration cost for participating in the summer institute. Furthermore, thanks to our generous sponsor, the National Science Foundation, we will be able to cover accommodation and meals for all accepted participants. We also have limited scholarships to cover round-trip airfare for participants from other African countries.
Yes, but not at the same time. For example, you can apply to SICSS-Accra, and then if you are not accepted you can apply to one of the other locations if it has a later deadline. However, you cannot have an applications under review at two locations simultaneously.
No. Every year we have more applicants than we can accept, and we would like everyone to have a chance to participate in SICSS once.
You can host a partner location of the Summer Institutes of Computational Social Science (SICSS) at your university, company, NGO, or government agency.