The ODISSEI Social Data Science (SoDa) team offers SoDa fellowships for early career social scientists (i.e., PhD candidates, early career postdocs, pre-PhD researchers who have finished their studies). Successful SoDa fellows will spend between 3-5 months full-time working on a social science research project they propose. During this time, they are members of the SoDa team at the Methodology & Statistics department of Utrecht University and mentored by one of the senior team members.
Applicants can submit proposals for projects in the social sciences (e.g., psychology, sociology, economics, behavioural science) for which a data science or data-related problem needs to be solved. Examples of such solutions could be writing a high-quality data analysis pipeline, performing a causal analysis with simulation-based robustness checks, creating a software package, or performing a geospatial, network, agent-based analysis, etc. The SoDa fellowship offers a unique opportunity to learn transferable skills while working on your own project. The projects are welcome to use any other ODISSEI facility, if applicable, but this is optional.
Please note that the fellowship is subject to availability. For more information on the conditions, please see the call for proposals. The deadlines for submission are the following:
- 30 September 2023
- 12 January 2024
- 31 May 2024
Previous participants were enthusiastic about different aspects of the programme.
Aron Joose (Tilburg University) summarised his experience as follows: ‘In my project, I used distributional semantic models (DSMs) to probe the sound symbolic associations of real first names, fake company names, and non-words in Dutch […]. I have been interacting mostly with the SoDa team, but also with the NLP group. Both groups have weekly update meetings in which you can present your work progress but also ask for and give advice. These meetings have made me feel very connected to my colleagues and have also made me feel like my own progress was seen and appreciated by others. During the entire project, I have learned a lot from my supervisors and my colleagues.’
Nadya Ali (Tilburg University) said the following: ‘The SoDa traineeship application process was one of the smoothest I have experienced […] when I did send an email with some of my questions the SoDa team was very responsive and helpful! We set up a meeting which was very informative, reassuring, and helped with completing the application. When it came to fitting the traineeship with my PhD schedule I felt like the SoDa team was flexible, understanding, and accommodating’. This is a great opportunity to work with people who are not only highly competent, but also genuinely invested in your professional development and well-being as a trainee.’
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