The Historical Network Research community is pleased to announce another event in the HNR Lunch Lectures Series. These online lectures will shed a spotlight on recent research and ideas from the field of historical network analysis to promote discussion among the HNR community.

The next in our regular series of lunchtime lectures is on June 16, 2022 (12-1 p.m. CET). Our speakers will be Bernardo Buarque, Roberto Lalli, Malte Vogl and Dirk Wintergrün from the ModelSEN project of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science.

You can find their abstract below or on the HNR website. If you would like to participate, please register via Eventbrite before June 14, 2022. You will receive a Zoom link by email prior to the lunch lecture.

Modelling socio-epistemic networks: Tool-oriented proposals for strengthening the community building in HNR

The talk gives an overview of the basic theoretical framework and the operational approaches of the project ModelSEN-Socio-epistemic networks: Modelling historical knowledge processes. Started in April 2021, the project aims at developing methods of longitudinal multi-layered network analysis of the dynamics of knowledge creation and diffusion. During the talk we will especially focus on the operational developments in three areas: first, the conceptualization and creation of ontologies for the general description of networks that could in principle be used in a variety of projects; second, the development of software packages for the creation and analysis of multi-layered networks; and third, the agent-based modeling approaches developed to study socio-epistemic processes of diffusion of innovation and consensus creation. While these tools have been developed on the basis of one case study (the history of general relativity), the central goal of the ModelSEN project is to promote and support dialogue among practitioners in the HNR community regarding the identification of standards and best practices in the various stages of historical network research projects. The talk is then meant to open the floor to the discussion about future steps for the elaboration of tools that can address common challenges and for the creation of frameworks that allow a greater flow of data and tools among projects.

We are looking forward to welcoming you online on the 16th!

Best wishes,

Aline Deicke and Ingeborg van Vugt

contact: events@historicalnetworkresearch.org.

Network of collaboration of scientists working on General Relativity and Gravitation in 1962. Image: Roberto Lalli, Dirk Wintergrün. https://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/project/renaissance-general-relativity