From June 22 to July 3, 2026, the Australian Internet Observatory (AIO) and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making and Society (ADM+S) will host a Summer (or Australian Winter) Institute in Computational Social Science in Melbourne — SICSS-Melbourne! For this 2-week intensive program, we will bring together PhD candidates and early career researchers to explore innovative techniques that bring computational methodologies and the social sciences together to study our societies and discover new solutions to make them better.
The program will involve a number of workshops and lectures, group activities, and participant-led research projects that will propose solutions to existing, practical problems developed by our academic and industry experts. We will use an arsenal of cutting-edge digital tools for data collection and analysis, discuss them in the context of more traditional social science research, and explore what combining them actually means.
Participants will have the chance to learn about and discuss the use of large language models and machine learning in actual research projects. Topics will also include:
- The use and development of more accessible and reproducible tools for data collection and analysis
- Network analysis
- Data donation frameworks - download packages and screen capture
- Web scraping of varying complexity
- Web archiving
We will discuss the ethical aspects of working with digital data and methods, as well as their countless limitations and how they need to be addressed.
There will be numerous opportunities for participants to talk about their research with senior colleagues, organisers, visiting speakers, and others in the cohort. All created materials and topics covered will be released as open-source resources, and participants will be able to incorporate them into their own projects or work with them in the future.
To support the interdisciplinary nature and spirit of this event, we welcome early career researchers from all backgrounds, fields of study, and institutions across Australia. We expect to host 20 participants. While most participants are expected to fully attend and participate in the entire program, we are also open to alternative arrangements, especially for those who need to travel far. Limited bursaries to assist with travel costs are available to those outside of Melbourne and will be distributed on a needs basis to make sure that participants from different institutions and locations can be physically present at the venue.
Applications will be open from 23 March 2026 to 30 April 2026. A link to submit an application will be made available here during that time.
The Australian Internet Observatory received co-investment from the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) through the HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons. The ARDC is enabled by the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS). Please share your feedback by emailing us at aio@rmit.edu.au.