Institute for Analytical Sociology

05/10/2026

How can we measure political polarization beyond voting records? In a new Network Science article, Hendrik Erz uses computational text analysis and network science to examine how members of the U.S. Congress talk about different issues over time. The results suggest that polarization is increasingly reflected not only in what politicians think, but also in what they choose to talk about. Read the article here:

Measuring issue-level polarization in congressional speech using community detection-algorithms - Volume 14

25/09/2026

On 14–16 September, the Complexity Science Hub (CSH) in Vienna hosted researchers from the Institute for Analytical Sociology (IAS) for a three-day connection workshop organized by Selcan Mutgan and Mirta Galesic. The workshop brought the two institutes together to exchange ideas, learn about each other's work and lay the groundwork for new collaborations.

Mirta Galesic and Henrik Olsson opened the workshop with an introduction to CSH and their research group, Collective Minds, and Károly Takács, Deputy Director of IAS, gave an overview of the institute's research. The attendees also had the pleasure of hearing from Helga Nowotny, a founding member and former president of the European Research Council and Chair of the CSH Scientific Advisory Board, who introduced the Socioscope project.

The first day of the workshop was filled with research presentations from both institutes, on topics from social networks and inequality to belief dynamics and collective behaviour. Over the next two days, participants continued in smaller groups, finding common ground and shaping ideas for joint projects.

We're excited to see where these conversations lead! 🤩😀

16/09/2026

Next Wednesday, the Linköping Excellence Centre for Analytical Sociology (LECAS) will launch the lecture series Foundations and Frontiers of Analytical Sociology. The series brings together some of the most influential scholars in analytical sociology, network science, computational social science, and the philosophy of social science. Across eleven lectures, participants will have the opportunity to hear from researchers who have helped shape the field of analytical sociology and continue to drive its development. Several of the speakers are among the world's most cited and influential social scientists.
Read more and see all the lectures here:https://tinyurl.com/4est4pnu

Some of the world's most influential researchers in analytical sociology, network science, and computational social science will visit Linköping University this autumn as part of a new international lecture series.

15/09/2026

Passionate about AI, causal inference, and social science? Join IAS at Linköping University as a postdoc in a cutting-edge WASP-HS project developing methods to detect and remove bias in AI-powered analyses of text data. Shape the future of research at the intersection of large language models and causal inference while investigating the impact of major development initiatives around the world. 🌍📚🤖
Deadline to apply September 24, read more and apply here:

You will join the research project Countering Bias in AI Methods in the Social Sciences, a collaboration between the Institute for Analytical Sociology (IAS) at Linköping University and the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) at Chalmers University of Technology, funded by WASP-HS....

10/09/2026

How can ideas from analytical sociology and complexity science inform each other? From 14–16 September, researchers from the Institute for Analytical Sociology (IAS), Linköping University, and the Complexity Science Hub (CSH) will come together in Vienna for an intensive workshop exploring connections across research communities.

The workshop brings together around 20 researchers to share ongoing work, explore shared research questions, and develop ideas for future collaboration. Topics include segregation and migration, social networks, belief dynamics, language models, collective behavior, innovation, and cumulative advantage.

We look forward to three days of stimulating discussions, new connections, and exciting ideas for future research!

📍 Complexity Science Hub, Vienna
📅 14–16 September 2026
🔗 Event page:

The IAS-CSH Connection Workshop will bring together around 20 researchers from the Institute for Analytical Sociology, Linköping University, Sweden, and the

27/08/2026

🎉 We are thrilled to welcome a brand new cohort to our Master's Programme in Computational Social Science! A big thank you to our student association, LinCSS, whose senior students are helping the newcomers settle into the program and campus life 🤝💙

This year, LinCSS finally got to paint its logo on Bredgatan outside Campus Norrköping. The association is excited to see Computational Social Science represented in the campus environment and views this as another step towards becoming an even more visible part of student life and campus culture at LiU.

Welcome to all our new students – we can't wait to follow your journey! 🚀

25/08/2026

IAS, in collaboration with the Swedish Excellence Centre in Computational Social Science (SweCSS) and the Linköping Excellence Center for Analytical Sociology (LECAS), is happy to present the program of our upcoming Seminar Series for the autumn term 2026. The Analytical Sociology Seminars and the International Roundtable on Computational Social Science are held weekly with presentations of leading international scholars. The seminars are open to all. All seminars will be held on Zoom. Some of them will also be held in room KO301 or Macro (Campus Norrköping) , see program.

12/08/2026

The EUSN 2026 conference is now in full swing! Almost 200 participants from all over the world, taking part in an extensive program with great keynote speakers and interesting sessions, whilst also enjoying Swedish summer at it´s best, in the beautiful surrounding of Industrilandskapet. It can´t be more awesome than that 😄

17/06/2026

We are excited to announce the public release of Threadle v1.2.0 — an open-source network analysis system developed by IAS researcher Carl Nordlund, built for population-scale social network research.

Threadle is designed for networks that are large, multilayered, and attribute-rich. Key capabilities include native multilayer support, integrated node attributes, and a memory-efficient architecture based on mixed-mode pseudo-projection — storing two-mode layers natively rather than projecting them, representing the equivalent of several trillions of edges at a fraction of the memory cost.
Threadle is already installed on SCB Mona — Statistics Sweden's secure microdata infrastructure — and comes with threadleR, an R frontend developed by Yukun Jiao.
Free and open-source: 👉

Threadle is a high-performance network engine built for large, structurally complex multilayer and multimode datasets — such as full-population administrative registers. Built in C #/.NET, it offers memory-efficient hyperedge storage, constant-time neighbor lookups, and native support for relationa...

05/06/2026

Applications are now open for the online doctoral course Foundations and Frontiers of Analytical Sociology (5 ECTS) at Linköping University, offered by the Institute for Analytical Sociology (IAS). Running from September until the Christmas break, the course is organized around an international lecture series featuring many of the scholars who have shaped analytical sociology and are defining its frontiers:
Delia Baldassarri, Peter Bearman, Elizabeth Bruch, Damon Centola, Diego Gambetta, Peter Hedström, Michael Macy, Gianluca Manzo, Arnout van de Rijt, Duncan Watts, and Petri Ylikoski.
Each lecture is paired with readings and followed by discussion-based seminars where participants critically engage with the material and their own research. The course concludes with an individual written assignment linked to the doctoral student’s research interests.

Read more:
https://forskarstudier.liu.se/en/kurs/7FIEI26/2026V/1624499

Registration:
https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/eFsbLUXnfk

Foundations and Frontiers of Analytical Sociology, 5.0 credits Den analytiska sociologins grundvalar och frontlinjer, 5.0 hp 7FIEI26 Course level Third-cycle Education Description The course aims to provide an in-depth and nuanced understanding of analytical sociology as a scientific field. Through....