Social Network Analysis. Introduction to methods and applications to the EUPRO database

This course is aims at providing participants to an introduction to different methods of Social Network Analysis and give them the tools to apply the method to their work.

The goal is to provide the participants with an understanding of the potential applicability of these methods to different types of networks and to various research questions.

The course will start with an introduction to simple descriptive methods to analyze and visualize social networks. It will then move to regression models, as widely used in spatial analysis, which try to explain the observed network characteristics from the characteristics of nodes, like their size and distance.

Finallly, the course will to introduce participants to novel statistical methods for social network analysis namely Exponential Random Graph Models, which address issues of dyadic dependence and allow analyzing network structure processes like network closure (the creation of sub-groups of nodes).

In order to demonstrate the analytical value for the research policy field, the course will include demonstrations and practical exercises done by combining the EU-PRO dataset on participation to European Framework Programs with other RISIS datasets providing data on the observed organizations, like the European Tertiary Education Register.