The University of Southampton’s Web Science Institute (WSI) is celebrating its first anniversary at a special event in London on 8 June.
The WSI brings together world-leading multidisciplinary expertise from across the University to tackle the most pressing global challenges facing the World Wide Web and wider society today.
It focuses on the analytical power of researchers from disciplines as diverse as sociology and computer science, economics and psychology, law and humanities to understand and explain the Web.
WSI Director Professor Dame Wendy Hall says:
“One year on from the launch of the Web Science Institute, we celebrate with a showcase of research and an afternoon of debate and discussion. Our theme – ‘Privacy and Trust in the Era of Big Data analytics’ – is one that impacts on everyone in the digital world as personal data becomes a tradeable asset, and carries wide-ranging implications for individuals, business and government.”
The event, at the Digital Catapult, marks a successful first 12 months of the WSI. Outcomes include:
- A number of social media research projects are underway, addressing crucial social science research questions around topics such as immigration, health policy and demographic modelling, by trialling social media data and methods in collaboration with PhD students and the Web Observatory.
- Eight new interdisciplinary projects, supported by the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF), have been progressed to stimulate interactions with business, government, industry and other users of University research.
Read the full press release here.