(Correspondent Yu Yawen) On the morning of August 19, the sixth Huazhong Agricultural University-Imperial College “Computational Social Science Methodology” Summer School kicked off in the A705 Lecture Hall of the Third Comprehensive Building. The lectures will run for one week. Over 80 young faculty members and students from more than 40 institutions, including Tsinghua University, Peking University, Zhejiang University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and Huazhong Agricultural University, are attending this summer school. The main lecturers include Koen van Dam, a researcher from Imperial College London; Zhanli Sun, a researcher from the Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development (IAMO) in Germany; Wander Jager, a professor from the University of Groningen; Xiong Hang, a professor from the School of Economics and Management at Huazhong Agricultural University; and Dr. Shuang Chang, a researcher from Fujitsu in Japan.
At the opening ceremony, Zeng Hongxia, Director of the Department of International Exchange and Cooperation, warmly welcomed the teachers and students who had gathered from all over the country. She emphasized that the university places great importance on international exchange and cooperation, encourages faculty to expand their international influence through in-depth exchanges, and has long supported training in cutting-edge methods in computational social sciences with internationally renowned research institutions, including Imperial College London, ETH Zurich, IAMO, the University of Groningen, and the University of Milan.
Professor Xiong Hang introduced the development of the summer school over the past five years to the new participants, highlighting that the summer school aims to provide systematic training in cutting-edge methods such as simulation and big data analysis to help social science researchers.
Koen van Dam, representing the lecturers, shared his experiences and insights from teaching social simulation courses. He encouraged young scholars to think critically, dare to ask questions, and actively express their ideas during the course, wishing the participants a fruitful learning experience.
As a representative of the participants, Ms. Cao Yuanji from Nanjing University expressed her gratitude to Huazhong Agricultural University and the summer school. She cherished the opportunity to explore computational social science with like-minded peers and stated that she would fully apply social simulation methods in her future research to explore the real-life implications and significance of social science research.
