|
|
|
 |
Vision 
Research breakthroughs, controversies and fashions in science can emerge unexpectedly, sometimes with unwelcome political and economic effects. What triggers these so-called 'scientific avalanches'? Why do such critical events occur and can their probability be estimated?
Why did stem-cell research suddenly become such an issue in the recent US presidential election? What is fuelling the simmering controversy about genetically modified foods? How are the research choices of scientists influenced about what appears to be fashionable at the time? In short, why do scientific research topics like these suddenly erupt from the labs and saturate the media?
The aim of the CREEN project is
- to develop new methods to recognize emerging critical events in evolving complex networks, coupled networks and active agent networks
- to apply these methods to the analysis of the emergence of new research topics (scientific avalanches) and the sudden emergence of crises in a social institution – the public trust in science
The project focuses on social networks and more particularly on the spreading of information in scientific and public communication networks. We see as critical events the emergence of information avalanches linked to the emergence of a collective behaviour in large groups of social actors.
The challenge of this interdisciplinary project is to combine models of information avalanches in mediated networks developed in the social sciences – in communication theory, media theory, and science and technology studies - with probabilistic models of data mining in complex networks and mathematical models about the evolution of complex networks developed in physics.
Empirically, we concentrate on the issue of how in science different topics appear, spread out through the scientific community and lead to epidemic-like behaviour (scientific avalanches) and how such scientific avalanches trigger and resonate with avalanches of information about science in the wider public. Data gathering in the project will be based on both bibliometric and webometric techniques.
The goal of the project is to develop policy recommendations based on a new and innovative understanding of critical events in mediated social networks with regard to scientific avalanches in science and the public understanding of science. |
|
