Interdisciplinary Institute for Societal Computing
I2SC advances critical research on questions at the intersection of society and technology, encompassing both: computing of society, and computing for society.
At: @uni-saarland.de
Chair: @ingmarweber.de
- Till Patrik Holterhus wurde zum Professor für Öffentliches Recht, Europarecht und Völkerrecht an der UdS berufen. Er übernimmt zudem die Co‑Direktion des Europa‑Instituts und wirkt als Verbundprofessor im Cluster für Europaforschung mit. 👉 www.uni-saarland.de/aktuell/neue... © Maximilian Baier
- 🏆 Saarbrücken now houses 11 ACM Fellows — about 1/3 of all ACM Fellows in Germany — highest of any location nationwide. This year, only 3 new Fellows in Germany were named, and Saarland University software engineering professor Sven Apel was one! Congrats, Prof. Apel! 👏 🔗 Read more: sic.link/apel
- Jordan D. Klein & Ingmar Weber published a Letter to the Editor in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that opens a conversation on the findings of Chi et al (Measuring global migration flows using online data). demogr.mpg.de/go/PNAS-Letter-Editor
- Missed the #TEDxSaarbridge talks by our Interdisciplinary Institute for Societal Computing? Good news, you can find their recordings now! 👀 🎥 #societalcomputing #sciencecommunications
- The recordings for TEDx Saarbrigge organized on June 14, 2025, are now available. Details: www.i2sc.net/events/past-... @i2sc.net @dock11saarland.bsky.social @algoright.bsky.social @uni-saarland.de @saarland-informatics-campus.de @dfki.bsky.social @ingmarweber.de @kevinbaum.bsky.social
- New Research out 📢 In "Citizens' trust in Constitutional Courts: Evidence from Spain" at @epsrjournal.bsky.social Pablo Castillo-Ortiz and I provide an input of empirical evidence into theoretical debates on the design of Constitutional Courts. Check it here: doi.org/10.1017/S175...
- And another job ad: We're looking for four student assistants! #hiring
- We are looking for a teamlead for our large-scale project SOUNDS! #compsocsci #PoliSky #PoliSci #hiring #JobAlert
- Watch our latest #PoliSci talk at TEDx "Wie bekommen wir mehr Bevölkerung in die Politik?" (in German) where Prof Braun discusses declining voter turnout, growing polarisation and loss of trust as well as potential solutions.
- Digital technologies reshape politics & religion alike — but how do European politicians reference religion online? Our #PoliSci study together with @davidschweizer.bsky.social & Eva-Maria Euchner examines EP candidates’ X (Twitter) profiles in 🇩🇪🇸🇪🇳🇱🇬🇧. Read more:
- Thanks for having me @i2sc.net - I enjoyed the discussion. Hope the rest of your SICSS goes well!
- We closed our Monday with a thought-provoking keynote by @ridhikashyap.bsky.social (@ox.ac.uk) on “𝐺𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝐼𝑛𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑎 𝐷𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑊𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑.” Her talk highlighted key challenges and opportunities for research at the intersection of gender, demography, and digital data.
- One of the perks of attending #HLF @hlforum.bsky.social is that I got to meet one of my favorite Youtube personalities in person @tomrocksmaths.bsky.social
- Always a pleasure to attend the Heidelberg Laureate Forum #HLF @hlforum.bsky.social & meet smart people. Catch me today (Tue) if you'd like to learn about our work at @i2sc.net. And be sure talk to Manon if you'd like to learn about her work about better AI safety evaluations.
- How do different types of regional organizations react to current challenges and crises? Find out in our #PoliSci publication together with @lisa-h-anders.bsky.social & Alexander Libman which explores this question by bringing together contributions from EU studies and comparative regionalism.
- Herzlichen Glückwunsch an Humboldt-Professor @ingmarweber.de! Was ein großartiger Erfolg! 🎉 #AvHProfessor
- 29 Mio. Euro Förderung für das Kompetenzzentrum SOUNDS: Ziel der Forschungsstelle ist es, Informatik und Sozialwissenschaften zusammenzubringen, um gesellschaftliche und wirtschaftliche Entwicklungen datenbasiert zu analysieren. Mehr dazu: www.uni-saarland.de/aktuell/gese... © UdS / Thorsten Mohr
- The amount of data available is greater than ever, yet remains mostly unused by social scientists & #PoliSci researchers. The Societal Observatory Using Novel Data Sources (SOUNDS) aims to change that - and receives 29 million Euro in funding from Saarland's state gov!🎉 Read more: bit.ly/SoundsPM
- Check out our new interdisciplinary volume on border regions as laboratories for researching #Europe! www.nomos-shop.de/isbn/978-3-7... #PoliSci
- In today's @ic2s2.bsky.social #IC2S2 poster session:: "Studying Behavioral Addiction by Combining Surveys and Digital Traces: A Case Study of TikTok" Joint work with Cai Yang, Sepehr Mousavi, @adash93.bsky.social and Krishna Gummadi. Find me at poster #37. Full paper: ojs.aaai.org/index.php/IC...
- Now with sweets
- Last day at @ic2s2.bsky.social #IC2S2 and time for an @i2sc.net group photo with @brahmaninutakki.bsky.social, @ethel-mensah.bsky.social and @jianlongzhu.bsky.social. Find Brahmani and Ethel at posters #21 and #93 today. Jianlong presented yesterday.
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View full threadEthel is presenting "Ethnic Diversity and Spatial Dynamics in Google Maps Reviews: Insights from a German Border City" (ojs.aaai.org/index.php/IC...). Joint work with Vikram Cannanure.
- Jianlong presented "Learn, Explore and Reflect by Chatting: Understanding the Value of an LLM-Based Voting Advice Application Chatbot" (dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...) Joint work w/ Manon, Vikram, @alexhartland.bsky.social, @rosanavarrete.bsky.social, @giucarny.bsky.social & @politicsunisaar.bsky.social
- Brahmani is presenting "Is there anything Left?: A Global Analysis on Changes in Engagement with Political Content on Twitter in the Musk Era" (journalqd.org/article/view...). Joint work with @rosanavarrete.bsky.social and @giucarny.bsky.social
- 🤔 How can we design AI tools to enhance democratic participation? 🗣️ At @ic2s2.bsky.social #IC2S2 Norrköping, I will give a parallel talk (Wednesday 2:30pm, Vingen 8) to discuss insights from a user study on an LLM-based voting advice application chatbot for the 2024 European Parliament election.
- If you're @ic2s2.bsky.social #IC2S2 and are looking for a faculty position, get in touch. @uni-saarland.de is hiring. Right now, there's an open call in Computer Science @saarland-informatics-campus.de: www.uni-saarland.de/fileadmin/up... Soon, there'll be open calls in the Social Sciences.
- Hello everyone! I’ll be presenting my work this Thursday, July 24, 2025 at 13:30 (Poster ID: 93) during the poster session at IC2S2’25 (@ic2s2.bsky.social) in Norrköping, Sweden. 📄 Check out the paper: ojs.aaai.org/index.php/IC... #IC2S2 #ComputationalSocialScience #SocialData
- I'm teaching for the first time this semester and I am thrilled with how my concepts class is going! We discussed interpretability today after reading 2 critique papers (Lipton's Mythos of Model Interpretability and Krishnan's Against Interpretability) and 2 content papers: Patchscopes and RAVEL. 🧵
- Die Universität des Saarlandes lädt am 24. Mai zum „Offenen Campus“ ein: Rund 300 Programmpunkte drehen sich von 10 bis 16 Uhr um Wissenschaft, Studium und Lehre. Studieninteressierte können sich über das vielseitige Studienangebot informieren (Foto: O. Dietze): www.uni-saarland.de/infotag
- @alexhartland.bsky.social starting the @politicsunisaar.bsky.social mission at @comptext.bsky.social 2025 conference. How reliable are GPT4 estimates of party positions? Well, it depends ;) #comingsoon
- Another fascinating morning at #comptext25 I was happy to join a panel on data and themes from the Horizon project #ActEU with @matildecer.bsky.social on gender and polarisation, @giucarny.bsky.social on gender and climate change. Looking forward to more from ActEU and more panels this afternoon!
- Today, in Saarland University at @i2sc.net, @pranav-nlp.bsky.social gave a talk on policy impact, focusing on loopholes in EU AI act and name change policies in academia.
- @pranav-nlp.bsky.social is speaking at the @i2sc.net about how seemingly neutral policies can cause harm when developed without input from marginalized communities, with examples from the AI Act and name change policies in academia
- @pranav-nlp.bsky.social is speaking at the @i2sc.net about how seemingly neutral policies can cause harm when developed without input from marginalized communities, with examples from the AI Act and name change policies in academia
- We would like to thank @sofiavasilopoulou.bsky.social , @pcmagalhaes.bsky.social and Nuno Garoupa for their detailed comments on earlier versions of this article. We are also very grateful to the three reviewers and the editors for their helpful feedback
- Very proud of this joint work with @alexiakatsanidou.bsky.social and Lea Heyne that is finally published at @sespjournal.bsky.social. In it we study EU polarisation and membership support in Greece, Portugal, and Spain. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
- Now out in Scientific Data: "VME: A Satellite Imagery Dataset and Benchmark for Detecting Vehicles in the Middle East and Beyond" If you're working on satellite imagery, check out the dataset and paper at www.nature.com/articles/s41... Work led by Noora Al-Emadi @ Qatar Computing Research Institute
- 📚 Check out this conference at @uni-saarland.de! 𝘊𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘻𝘦𝘯’𝘴 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘭 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘻𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯. 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘗𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘳𝘦𝘨𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 Organised by Prof Daniela Braun, #PROTEMO Coordinator Prof Georg Wenzelburger, and Dr. Kristina Weissenbach📷 © UdS/Jörg Pütz
- Lügen lohnt sich: Wer im Internet die Unwahrheit sagt, hat oft Erfolg in der Politik. Über längere Zeiträume sind die Folgen von Falschaussagen noch nicht wissenschaftlich beobachtet worden. Dies will die „Beobachtungsstelle für Online-Politik“ an der Saar-Uni ändern (© privat): tinyurl.com/2339gxbz
- Neue Klimatechnik für Haus, Auto, Industrie: Drähte und Bleche können nachhaltig kühlen und heizen. Mit einem ersten Kühlschrank-Prototyp zeigt das Forschungsteam von Stefan Seelecke und Paul Motzki auf der Hannover Messe, wie die Elastokalorik kühlt (© Dietze): www.uni-saarland.de/aktuell/hann...
- Great meeting today with the newest members of @o3pol.bsky.social! Excited to dive into cutting-edge research on online politics and explore how digital spaces shape political behavior. Stay tuned for more!
- Our team is growing—more brains, more ideas, and just the right amount of chaos. Looking forward to the work ahead! 😄📊
- Great meeting today with the newest members of @o3pol.bsky.social! Excited to dive into cutting-edge research on online politics and explore how digital spaces shape political behavior. Stay tuned for more!
- Are you interested in how digital platforms like #X shape political discourse? Check out @o3pol.bsky.social, the Observatory of Online Politics, established as part of our Political Deception in the Digital Era project headed by @rosanavarrete.bsky.social! #PoliSci
- Some quick and dirty QTA on gender and political communication in Germany and Spain 👇🏻👇🏻 For more, follow @o3pol.bsky.social ;)
- On March 8 each year, politicians and parties flood social media with messages about gender equality- what happens the rest of the year? @giucarny.bsky.social gives us some insight into politicians' online engagement with gender-related issues over time politics.i2sc.net/blogposts/8m...
- On March 8 each year, politicians and parties flood social media with messages about gender equality- what happens the rest of the year? @giucarny.bsky.social gives us some insight into politicians' online engagement with gender-related issues over time politics.i2sc.net/blogposts/8m...
- Thanks to Helen Kennedy and the whole @digitalgoodnet.bsky.social for inviting me to the meeting in Salford/Manchester! It was great to hear from the diverse set of people and their experience in creating and evaluating digital good. Quite relevant for our work at @i2sc.net.
- Did Twitter favor tweets from right-wing politicians? International study ends involuntarily in 2023...
- New publication alert! We look at how engagement received by parties and politicians in 12 countries shifted after Musk took over the platform and until June 2023. Check it out at journalqd.org/article/view.... @ingmarweber.bsky.social @rosanavarrete.bsky.social @giucarny.bsky.social
- Today I had two very special guests in my course Politics in the digital era 🥳 Thanks @giucarny.bsky.social & @alexhartland.bsky.social for your great class on quantitative text analysis and LLMs! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
