The researchers at the Institute for Analytical Sociology (IAS) at Linköping University conduct advanced, interdisciplinary, cutting-edge research on important social issues. The institute was founded in 2014 by Peter Hedström, professor of analytical sociology.
“These are exciting times to be a social scientist,” says Peter Hedström. “Increased availability of digital data and rapid advances in methods for analysing so-called big data have laid the foundation for the emergence of the field of computational social science.”
Maria Brandén is a professor and director of the Institute for Analytical Sociology. Her research deals with different types of segregation and how it affects people’s lives:
“By studying what happens at the individual level, we can understand why things turn out the way they do at societal level. Questions about segregation are a good example of what analytical sociology can be used for. How do schools, cities and workplaces become segregated and what are the consequences of this?”
The vision is for the institute to grow through strategic recruitments and in the foreseeable future become a world-leading centre for computational social science.
“This is where LiU’s social sciences can really make a difference, in the borderland with computer science,” says Peter Hedström.
