About Copenhagen Centre for Social Data Science
SODAS is an interdisciplinary social science centre based at the Faculty of Social Sciences, UCPH. Combining the entire range of classic social science methods from econometrics to ethnography with new data science techniques including machine learning and natural language processing, SODAS aspires to do cutting-edge and creative interdisciplinary research, teaching and impact at the fertile crossroads between the social sciences and data science. In collaboration with our partners from UCPH and others universities in Denmark and abroad, as well as private, public and civil society institutions, SODAS is home to several large research projects funded by, among others, the European Research Council, the Carlsberg Foundation and the Villum Foundation.
Teaching, Support and Collaboration
SODAS plays a leading role in the new English language-based M.Sc. in Social Data Science, at UCPH. Combining state of the art data science methods with solid social science analysis , the programme is based on three concepts – behaviour, networks and ideas – which the new interdisciplinary field of social data science shares with the five classic social science subjects taught at the Faculty (anthropology, economics, political science, psychology and sociology). SODAS is also involved in other teaching activities, including the popular summer-school Introduction to Social Data Science at the Department of Economics and other social data science related courses taught by the five departments at the Faculty of Social Sciences. Researchers from SODAS also take part in numerous further-education activities and in research dissimilation to the wider public.
The center also hosts the Social Sciences Data Lab, which provides support with data management, data science, digital methods, and risk assessment work for researchers throughout SAMF. SODAS may also be enrolled as a partner, formally or informally, in research projects funded by public or private institutions in Denmark and abroad, and in strategic research initiatives within the university, such as the Data+ program.
Organisation and Management
The Copenhagen Center for Social Data Science is overseen by a director and a deputy director. Morten Axel Pedersen, Professor of Anthropology and Social Data Science, serves as the director of SODAS, while Ingo Zettler, Professor of Psychology, serves as the deputy director.
SODAS also maintains a Faculty Board, comprising four faculty members. The aim of the Faculty Board is to reflect the interdisciplinary academic disciplines and faculty groups within SODAS. In addition to the director and deputy director, the four members of SODAS’ Faculty Board are: Hjalmar Alexander Bang Carlsen, Associate Professor at SODAS; Rosa Lavelle-Hill, Assistant Professor of Social Data Science at SODAS and the Department of Psychology; Kristoffer Albris, Associate Professor at the Department of Anthropology and SODAS, and Head of Studies at the MSc. Social Data Science; and Professor of Data Science Roberta Sinatra. Together, they form the SODAS Faculty Board. Clara Vandeweerdt, Assistant Professor at SODAS and the Department of Political Science, serves as an alternate member of the Faculty Board. The Faculty Board addresses matters significant to the organisation and management of SODAS.
Additionally, SODAS has an Advisory Board, which includes a faculty member from each department of the Faculty of Social Sciences (Anthropology, Psychology, Sociology, Political Science, and Economics), as well as a faculty member from SODAS. The SODAS Advisory Board consists of Professor of Anthropology Morten Axel Pedersen, Professor of Psychology Ingo Zettler, Professor of Political Science Rebecca Adler-Nissen, Associate Professor at the Department of Economics Andreas Bjerre-Nielsen, Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology Friedolin Merhout, and Associate Professor at SODAS Hjalmar Alexander Bang Carlsen. Biannually, the SODAS Advisory Board receives updates on relevant and significant research, teaching, and impact-related tasks and issues.
In addition to the centre administrator, the DataLab staff, and a handful of student assistants, SODAS is home to some twenty assistant professors, postdocs and PhD students fully or partly employed by the centre. SODAS also comprises a number of additional researchers from each of the Faculty’s five departments, who are involved in social data science and/or teach at the SDS M.Sc. program. Finally, SODAS welcomes a steady flow of guest researchers and research associates from Denmark and aboard.
The centre administration as well as the offices of numerous research projects and researchers are located at CSS, Øster Farimagsgade 5, Bldg. 1, 2 floor. Offices for additional researchers, technical staff and students are found Bldg. 1 ground and first floor. You can find us here.
What is social big data?
Social big data are often unstructured data from large, rapidly growing digital databases of information logged and stored by sensors, on social media platforms, in electronic payment systems, via website traffic, in GPS units in land, sea and air, within digitized text corpora, digital cameras and more – in short, all the things people do or say that leaves behind a digital footprint.
What is social data science?
New types of data – ’big data’- are flooding the world. The catchphrase for the computational collection, processing and analysis of these digital traces is ‘data science’. The Faculty of Social Sciences has made the integration of new data science techniques with social scientific modes of enquiry a strategic priority. We call this integration Social Data Science.