Press release: Social networks and big data

Nr. 118/2016 - 10.06.2016

Universities of Göttingen and Nanjing open Sino-German Institute of Social Computing

(pug) Interdisciplinary research on social networks and big data lies at the heart of a new joint institute of the Universities of Göttingen in Germany and Nanjing in China. With the objective of advancing research in the field and combining it with academic exchange and graduate training, the two long-time partner universities have opened the Sino-German Institute of Social Computing (SGISC). Social computing is concerned with exploring and understanding social behavior, network analysis, interaction, cooperation and evolution among human beings as well as other types of entities in physical and cyber worlds with the aid of pervasive information and communication technologies.

Prof. Dr. Jun Chen, President of Nanjing University, and Prof. Dr. Ulrike Beisiegel, President of the University of Göttingen, attended the ceremony. Both expect the pioneering cooperation among the natural sciences, information technology, life sciences and social sciences will bring new impetus for Sino-German collaboration including joint training and research projects on the emerging topics of social computing.

“The Institute will leverage information technology, especially big data methods, and integrating related domain knowledge and theoretical models to understand the individual and social behaviors and predict the future development,” says Prof. Dr. Xiaoming Fu, Director of SGISC Göttingen. “This can be applied in many areas, such as city planning, social governance, business management, finance, disease prevention and control.” According to Prof. Dr. Sanglu Lu, Executive Director of SGISC Nanjing, the ongoing Sino-German collaboration has received financial support from several institutions in Europe and China.

Since 2010, researchers from Göttingen University’s Institute of Computer Science have been working with colleagues at Nanjing University as well as within the Göttingen Campus – stemming from the fields of computer science, sociology, psychology, biology, physics, economics and medical science – on modeling social networks, social structure and behavior analysis, social influence, information diffusion and public health. Joint events such as workshops, seminars and invited talks took place every year. “While German scientists are familiar with models and analytic techniques in related disciplines, the Chinese scientists have rich experience in understanding user interaction on various social media platforms,” explains Prof. Fu.

The Universities of Göttingen and Nanjing have been working together closely for more than 30 years. In 1989, they formed the joint Sino-German Institute for Legal Studies, in 2005 the joint German-Chinese Institute for Intercultural German Studies and Cultural Comparison. That same year, they signed a university-wide cooperation treaty. For further information on the SGISC, go to www.sgisc.uni-goettingen.de.

Contact:
Prof. Dr. Xiaoming Fu
University of Göttingen
Email: fu@cs.uni-goettingen.de

Prof. Dr. Sanglu Lu
Nanjing University
Email: sanglu@nju.edu.cn