Workplan

The project attempts a specific research strategy to support the interdisciplinary discourse inside of the project and the achievement of discipline-relevant progress at the same time. At the beginning of the project the focus is on the development of a common understanding of the networks under study. Under the heading of “Composition of the network” we will address questions like: What are the actors and their links? How they can be operationalized and measured? What kind of complexity is required from a social science perspective – connected networks, networks disturbed by external forces? What kind of processes are described by mathematical models? How these processes can be observed in real networks? These issues will accompany the project during all phases.

A special workpackage WP 6 is devoted to the problem of creating a common area of understanding. We apply here the concept of Peter Galison of a “trading zone” in a pragmatic way by trying to create our own “trading zone” actively. This will be the place where different notions can be interchanged by using a commonly understandable language. At the beginning of the project task T6.1 will be performed to build glossary of terms that will be used by all partners and to describe planned research in language understandable for all partners.  Parallel to all workpackages, in T6.2 the progress of common understanding will be documented and analysed. This task condenses the model description, data description and visual description of the problem of public trust in science. It will further deliver “meta”-descriptions of the main steps in the project as network definitions, process definitions and control scenarios, the task acts as an environment which actively steers the information flows between the different disciplinary grounded approaches and the development of a common approach. In the last phase of the project, in T6.3 these meta descriptions will be condensed to policy recommendations.
A similar parallel role belongs to the workpackage WP1. This workpackage carries the complex networks view (physics) on the problem. It will provide a set of tools for network analysis and especially critical events in complex networks. The main objective of this work package will be to develop the theory of phase transitions for complex networks and to create mathematical models which can be used for studying critical events in multi-networks. It will transfer developed concepts to the other workpackages to inform the conceptualisation of the networks from a social science perspective (WP3), their measurement (WP3,4), their visualization and analysis (WP5) and the creation of policy recommendations (T6.3).
The main goal of WP2 is to create both simple and complex models and to discover scenarios leading to critical events in them. It will serve for other workpackages as a source of possible interesting phenomena which should be searched for in the real world.

The main task of the WP3 will be to collect and analyze data for networks of scientific communication, to look into the phenomena of scientific avalanches and to identify avalanches of mistrust in the public understanding of science. Although there could be a risk that the gathering of data about the spreading of mistrust or disinformation does not deliver enough data for a statistical analysis there is certainly the possibility to obtain data about the spreading of new ideas in science. Decisions about research directions will be undertaken during the first phase of project duration.
WP4 will develop indicators for emergent avalanches to enable their diagnosis at an early stage, and to identify critical points and places for intervention.
WP5 will create background for further support of physical and social studies by creating algorithms useful to identify relevant network characteristics (important actors, crucial links, subgroups, roles) important from the point of view of the whole project objectives. The second goal of this work package will be to develop visualization methods that could help to observe dynamical changes in the studied networks.

The project has to balance the tension between a very qualitative, detailed social science view of information avalanches in mediated communication networks and a very abstract mathematical description of their dynamics. Besides WP6 acting both as a communicator and condenser, different explicit overlaps between the workpackages and shared responsibilities between the partners of the consortium in the workpackges ensure the necessary research connectivity  in the consortium. Data mining will take place in WP3 (mainly focussed on traditional media and bibliometrics) and WP4 (mainly focused on the web). Data visualization in WP5 will use data from WP2, WP3 and WP4. Network analytical tools developed in WP1 will turned into algorithms for empirical network analysis (WP5). Probabilistic models developed in WP4 will be contrasted with qualitative models developed in WP2 and analytical models developed in WP1. 

The policy recommendations at the end of the project (T6.3) will be composed from following main results of all workpackages:

WP1 will deliver backgrounds to analytical description of studied phenomena.
WP2 will deliver a catalog of known and maybe unknown critical events that can occur in complex networks.
WP3 will deliver social models, collected data and preliminary observations concerning avalanches in scientific networks or other critical (unexpected) phenomena in mediated web-like environments.
WP4 will develop methods for diagnosing and intervening in emergent avalanches.
WP5 will develop efficient and reliable methods for computing, evaluating and illustrating dynamics of networks.

Apart from research workpackages two managerial and dissemination workpackages are included.
WP7 is devoted to dissemination of the results through the web, promotion brochures, publications and workshops.
WP8 is devoted to the CREEN management and assessment. Self-assessment will take place continuously and will reported every six months during the Management Board meetings. Moreover leading European specialists working in familiar fields will be invited to create Advisory Board to incorporate CREEN external assessment. Each work package will be assessed according to tasks and objectives execution. The criteria will be:

WP1 – developed tools will be evaluated according to their utility for real network analysis; correctness of created models will be verified by numerical simulations;
WP2 – number of observed different critical events in networks and in network-network interactions;
WP3 – created models should be realistic; number of collected data records should be large enough to perform statistical measures; data should be helpful to observe critical phenomena in real networks;
WP4 – developed indicators should be helpful to policy makers;
WP5 – developed algorithms should be effective, flexible and error robust;
WP6 – the outcome should be helpful and understandable for people coordinating financing of science (i.e. by EU Programmes) as well as possibly translatable into administrative tasks.

Assessment will also be monitored by the number of users of the Web site. Any recommendations and other remarks given on the debating forum mounted on our Web site will help to improve the CREEN activity.

General milestones of the project are annual meetings of the Project Board. Detailed milestones connected to every WP follow from timetables of WP deliverables.