Web Science Trust

Untangling the Web of Humans and Technology

Annual Conference: ACM WebSci'23

Thanks to everyone who made WebSci’22 in Barcelona such a great event – Looking forward to seeing you at the next conference: 30th April – 1st May in Austin, Texas,  co-located with the Web Conference.

 

Registration is now available – click below to visit the Conference website. Early Bird available until March 15th.

 

 

 

 

New Web Science White Paper Series

WST has commissioned a new series of white papers by leading authors on current issues affecting society as it struggles to resolves its relationship with Technology.

Untangling the Web

Interviews: hosted by Noshir Contractor

WebSci’23 Registration now open

This year, ACM WebSci’23 is co-located with The Web Conference.  You can choose to register for both The Web Conference and WebSci or for WebSci only (in person or virtually).  Early bird registration ends on 15 March.  For WebSci, the registration rates are the same...

New WST White Paper on Privacy

Law has granted individuals some rights over the use of data about them, but data protection rights have not redressed the balance between the individual and the tech giants. A number of approaches aim to augment personal rights to allow individuals to police their...

Web Science White paper – Building trust

Southamptons WSI have produced a collection of Web Science white papers. This white paper sets out how to embody a Data Governance Model which builds trust, particularly when used with large group data sharing, within and between different organisations through the...

What is Web Science?

Web Science is the study of the most complex piece of technology ever created. The Web comprises billions of technical and human components operating globally, with each piece subtly influencing the others. Multiple expert perspectives across scientific disciplines are required to build an understanding of how the Web changes society just as much as society changes the Web. 

Get Involved

WST works with universities. think tanks, research groups, governments, businesses and private individuals to better understand the nature and impact the Web will continue to have on society.

Click below to learn more about the research,  courses, events, training, conferences and outreach we offer, support and promote.

 

 

 

 

 

About Us

The Web Science Trust is a UK charity hosted by the University of Southampton which brings together world class thinkers and research in Web Science. We are a not-for-profit group representing 20 of the leading universities and research groups and headed by international thought leaders in Web Science and Socio-technical systems.

WSTNet Laboratories

Our global network of research labs

WST Newsletter

A round-up of News and Events

WebSci Courses & Summer Schools

Find WebSci and related courses

WebSci courses and WSTNet Summer School

Brave Conversations

Our international public outreach series

Join Anni Rowland-Campbell and her team ...

Untangling the Web

A podcast from the Web Science Trust.

Join Noshir Contractor for a new series ..

Web Science Policy & Advice

Our Trustee led think-tank

Advising leaders in Government & Business

ACM Web Science Conference

Our international academic conference.
Next conference to be held in Austin, Texas. 30th April - 1st May.
Co-located with the Web Conference

14 years, thousands of researchers

The Video Vault

Watch videos from WebSci events and our YouTube channel

Publications & Research

Leading books, papers and talks on Web Science

Our Mission & Vision

Our vision and mission for the Trust is to help grow an understanding of the Web through interdisciplinary scientific methods.

We need to understand the Web, because it is evolving alongside society. Social and technical innovation drive each other. There is no longer a distinction between online and offline; the Web involves virtually all of us to some degree. If it is to benefit humankind, we need to understand the Web, engineer it sensitively and sustainably, anticipate its effects, and also anticipate the consequences of social change upon it. Web Science must therefore involve both engineering the technology, and analysing its impact.

Evolving technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things, new practices, such as social machines and telemedicine, and new contexts, such as the pandemic lockdowns, will only accelerate social and technical change via, and as a direct result of, the Web.

Web Science must therefore include, at a minimum, mathematics, network science, sociology, law, ethics, psychology, computer science, media studies, linguistics, geography, and so on. Virtually all disciplines have something to say about the Web. The Web, as a diverse network, demands a research community to reflect the diversity of cultural, legal, political, commercial and technical structures which affect, and in turn are affected by, the Web.

 

Why is Web Science important?

Listen to WST Trustee Danny Weitzner put the importance of Web Science into context.

Brave Conversations

Brave Conversations near you?

Brave Conversations have recently been to Barcelona and Sharjah and are heading out to Texas in 2023

Register for the the next Brave conversations event live or online and become part of the Conversation.

Summer School

TBA, 2023

Stay tuned for the next in the series of Web Science summer schools created by our wider WSTNet community to engage students from international research labs

 

WebSci Conference

APRIL 30 – MAY 4, 2023 Austin, Texas

The ACM Web Science conference (WebSci’23) will be co-located with the 2023 Web Conferences in Austin, Texas. Click here for the conference site.

 

Web Science News / Blog

News and Blog posts

Mar 23, 2023

WebSci’23 Program

Sun, April 30 7:30 am - 9:00 am: Breakfast (provided) 10:00 am - 10:30 am: Opening Remarks 10:30 am - 11:00 pm: Break (snacks provided) 11:00 pm - 12:30 pm: Politics and Ideology Paper Session   12:30 pm - 1:30 pm: Lunch (provided) 1:30 pm - 3:00 pm: Language and...

Mar 19, 2023

WebSci’23 Travel Grants

15th ACM Web Science Conference: Inequalities in the Face of Concurrent Crises30 April – 1 May 2023Austin, Texas, USA (and online)https://websci23.webscience.org/ WebSci and SIGWEB are pleased to announce the availability of a fund to help support attendance to...

Feb 21, 2023

WebSci’23 Registration now open

This year, ACM WebSci’23 is co-located with The Web Conference.  You can choose to register for both The Web Conference and WebSci or for WebSci only (in person or virtually).  Early bird registration ends on 15 March.  For WebSci, the registration rates are the...

Jan 5, 2023

Call for Interest: WebSci’24 and WebSci’25

Deadline: 3 February 2023 ********************************************************************************************************** The Steering Committee of ACM WebSci is seeking statements of interest from organizations or consortia interested in hosting the...

Jan 5, 2023

Book Release: Digital Modernity

In this monograph, O’Hara reviews the literature that characterises what is called digital modernity. Digital modernity narratives focus on the possibilities of the data gathered by an ambient data infrastructure, enabled by ubiquitous devices such as the...

Nov 14, 2022

WebSci’23 Call for Papers

About the Web Science Conference Web Science is an interdisciplinary field dedicated to understanding the complex and multiple impacts of the Web on society and vice versa. The discipline is well situated to address pressing issues of our time by incorporating...

Oct 26, 2022

In Conversation with: George Metakides

In this interview we sit down with Prof. George Metakides, one of our esteemed WST trustees, to talk about democracy in the digital space and why you should be  concerned. Ian: George, thanks very much for taking the time to chat with me today. George: Always...

Oct 18, 2022

Rutgers: Welcome to WSTNet

Please join me in welcoming Matt Weber as the new WSTNet Lab Director part of the NetSci group in the School of Information and Communication at Rutgers. We'll be interviewing Matt in the upcoming weeks to talk about his group, his research interests and how how he...

Sep 26, 2022

WebSci’23: Call for Papers

Call for Papers About the Web Science Conference Web Science is an interdisciplinary field dedicated to understanding the complex and multiple impacts of the Web on society and vice versa. The discipline is well situated to address pressing issues of our time by...

Sep 10, 2022

Resilent Government: a new paper

Data has tremendous potential to build resilience in government. To realize this potential, we need a new, human-centred, distinctly public sector approach to data science and AI, in which these technologies do not just automate or turbocharge what humans can...