Two-day Conference on Network Science Kicks Off

The Unexpected Link: Using Network Science to Tackle Social Problems, a conference organized by the CEU Center for Network Science (CNS) began June 17 in the Auditorium. Welcoming remarks by CEU President and Rector, Yehuda Elkana, and CNS Director, Balazs Vedres, opened the 2-day event, featuring lectures and panel discussions with scholars from Europe, North America, the Middle East, and Asia.

The opening section on achievements and open problems in network science, was moderated by Balazs Vedres and featured a lecture by Harrison C. White (Columbia University, US) on “Meanings from Switchings: Connections between Networks and Language”. White argued that the ambiguity found in discourse, which is coherent without being constructional (like in completed writing), is where the true puzzle lies for scholars. Further, he posited that to understand complex organization, “we have to understand what is happening at the level below”. By this he meant what emerges linguistically at the sub-conscious level, where network switchings between sets of alternative options are constantly taking place.

Later panels will address topics such as: networks linking nature and society; global networks of risk; teams of collaboration - creativity and collusion; the emergence of social order; organizations, markets, and governance; biological webs and human impacts on the environment; bridging the gap between social and biological networks, as well as future directions in network science and transnational - interdisciplinary collaborations: what should a center for network science aim at?

The plenary keynote talk will be given by David Stark (Columbia University, US) on “Post-socialist network dynamics as strategic case: foreign investment, politicization and business group dynamics in Hungary, 1987-2006″.

Additional program details can be found here: http://web2.ceu.hu/cns/2009conf/prog

This conference also serves as an opening event of the newly-established Center for Network Science at CEU. The aim of this center is to create a problem oriented interdisciplinary platform, which coordinates network research at CEU. The center also aims at becoming a focal node in organizing network science in Europe, and establishing connections to the US.