August 25 to September 7, 2024 | Regional Institute for Population Studies, University of Ghana
PLEASE READ THE INFORMATION ON THIS PAGE CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU APPLY.
Participation is open to Masters and PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, and 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 feeding 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 (4/5 teams) 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 before the Summer 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.
Interested participants can apply as:
An individual:
To be competitive, you must also demonstrate in your motivation letter that you can work as part of a team and what your likely contributions would be. Your proposal should also be clear and supported by evidence and demonstrate readiness for research in computational social science. We don’t expect you to be an expert in computational social sciences prior to the summer institute. However, you must demonstrate in your concept note that your proposed research is interesting and can be explored during the summer institute and beyond (feasible).
Applications/expressions of interest will be accepted from April 13, 2024, until July 8 July 20, 2024. In order to be guaranteed full consideration, all application materials must be submitted online via https://forms.gle/NBNyh3edkeyg2arGA.
A group comprising of 4-5 individuals:
To be competitive, you must demonstrate in your motivation letter that your team is diverse (includes people of different genders and disciplines) and that every member of your team will make clear contributions to all aspects of the proposed research. Your proposal should also be clear, supported by evidence and demonstrate readiness for research in computational social science. We don’t expect you to be experts in computational social sciences prior to the summer institute. However, you must demonstrate in your concept note that your proposed research is interesting and novel and can be explored during the summer institute and beyond (feasible).
Applications/expressions of interest will be accepted from April 13, 2024, until July 8 July 20, 2024. In order to be guaranteed full consideration, all application materials must be submitted online via https://forms.gle/XXvyGpfq4oCqU8pJ8.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THERE ARE DIFFERENT LINKS FOR APPLICATION AS AN INDIVIDUAL AND A GROUP.
Applications that are not complete by the deadline may not receive full consideration. Conditional offers will be sent by July 17 July 24, 2024, while unconditional offers to participate in the program will be sent by August 12, 2024.
Inquiries can be sent to sicss@rips-ug.edu.gh
After the application due date, we will review all applications based on the team composition or individual’s professional and research experience. Preference will be given to postgraduate students and researchers/academics within five years of their PhD. We will also evaluate individual/team’s experience with coding or the potential to be proficient before the summer institute. Lastly, we are interested in hosting participants who would be willing and able to commit to fully participate and engage in the entire program.
After an initial assessment, teams/individuals will be issued a conditional offer until they can demonstrate a high level of proficiency in R-programming or good progress. Only the applicants who are sent an unconditional offer will be formally invited to attend and participate in the summer institute. At the Summer Institue, applicants who apply as individuals will be assigned to a group/team based on their research interest.
At the summer institute: We aim to ensure that the summer institute is as accessible as possible. To enhance your experience, we will provide:
Prizes and awards: Cash prizes will be awarded directly to team members based on the novelty of their research and progress by the end of the summer institute. All the relevant team members have provided their bank account details.
The following cash prizes are available:
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 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 boot camp, we will introduce you to R-programming and help you enrich 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 John Templeton Foundation, we will be able to cover meals for all accepted participants.
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 there is a later deadline. However, you cannot have 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.