Impactful Digital Change-Making: the Computational Social Science programme
Suzanne Hansen, head of partnerships for the Computational Social Science programme (Image: Christa Romp).
This week, we talked with Suzanne Hansen, head of partnerships for the Bachelor’s Computational Social Science, at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, located at the Roeterseiland campus.
What is Computational Social Science?
Computational Social Science (CSSci) is a transdisciplinary approach addressing our society’s biggest “wicked” problems, that is grounded in social science theory and utilizes innovative digital methods. Digitalization and its related innovations present opportunities for massive social transformations, but they also raise complex ethical, social, and sustainability issues that should not be ignored.
In our new bachelor of science programme in Computational Social Science (launched in 2022), students combine theory, research methods, and computational skills to design and implement effective and ethical digital interventions, and make a positive impact for a better world. Our students work on projects related to current social challenges alongside real companies, NGOs and changemakers in our communities.
Hosted by the Faculty of Social Sciences on the Roeterseiland Campus, CSSci draws on expertise from multiple fields including Social Sciences, Humanities, and Information Sciences. We incorporate change-making skills, teaching students how to take their growing academic and research skills into the real world, through project-based learning.
By supplementing social sciences and humanities courses with training in digital tools, coding and artificial intelligence, students learn to design and create sustainable digital interventions for complex societal issues. Graduates of the program will be prepared for a range of careers, including in IT, research, and policymaking.
What is your role?
“As the Head of Partnerships, my main goal is to establish meaningful collaborations with external organisations that offer students challenging projects. Through my experience, I have learned that a transdisciplinary approach involves integrating the real-world knowledge and expertise of our partners into the learning process.
What I love about my role is to inspire lecturers and students to participate in this innovative teaching approach. It is not just about sharing knowledge in a traditional way, but also about cocreating innovations together. Witnessing students, teachers, and external partners collaborate to address the complexity of the world and create a positive impact is truly inspiring!”
How does collaboration with external partners fit into this program?
An interesting feature of the CSSci program is that it provides students with the opportunity to work on tangible, socially relevant projects alongside a wide range of partners, including university labs, PhD candidates, journalists, NGOs, diverse communities (in the Netherlands but also Africa), health institutions, the municipality of Amsterdam, and even the Dutch Ministry of Health. It is remarkable to see such successful and fruitful collaborations in action.
«From day one, students are involved in projects that are directly related to real-world social challenges in collaboration with external partners. Currently, they are tackling subjects such as climate change, surveillance, health, and soon, the future of mobility and health challenges», Suzanne explains.
What kind of projects do you work on?
Water: Supporting the ‘access to water’ mission, rethinking The BluePump Project
The BluePump provides water in many villages across Africa (Image from BluePump.com)
A first group of CSS students is working with the foundation Join the Pipe on the BluePump Project, initiated by Paul Van Beers, co-founder of the FairWater Foundation. After studying NGO-financed handpumps in rural Africa, Paul noticed that over 60% of them fell into disrepair after a few years, mainly due to high maintenance costs and difficulties to get spare parts. The BluePump, a cheaper and easier-to-maintain alternative, was created after extensive research.
The Join-the-Pipe foundation now manages the project. Last semester, CSSci students mapped the location of all the BluePumps using data from the FairWater Foundation and by reaching out to local partners in Africa.
«This semester, we are extending our collaboration with a new aim: to empower communities by sharing knowledge on how to repair BluePumps. We have established a partnership with the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences’ Smart Asset Management Lab, led by Jurjen Helmus, a PhD candidate at the UvA. Julien is helping us by conducting extensive testing on the BluePump to predict and prevent failures.
This collaboration is an opportunity to have a meaningful impact by offering a small contribution to the mission to improve access to clean water for hundreds of communities in rural Africa », Suzanne says.
Privacy awareness: enhance information security in Dutch health organisations
CCSci students gathered during a lecture from Brenno De Winter (Image: Suzanne Hansen).
Another group of CSSci students is working to help Amsterdam health organizations improve their information security. This team is collaborating with SIGRA and the Health Ministry.
This collaboration started with two guest lectures by Brenno De Winter, Chief of Security and Privacy Operations at the Ministry of Health. De Winter is an expert in IT, security and privacy, and previously created OpenKAT, an open-source tool that tracks privacy vulnerabilities.
Suzanne mentions: «Brenno De Winter’s two guest lectures inspired us to ask him for a challenge in the second semester. He suggested we focus on improving privacy awareness in health institutions. As we always try to start locally, we reached out to health institutions in the surroundings of the Roeterseiland campus.»
This led students to SIGRA, a partnership of Dutch health organizations that works on privacy and information security. Eventually, they established a connection between SIGRA and OpenKAT from the Ministry of Health. “Our students discovered that there was a real lack of knowledge about OpenKAT, and that health professionals were intimidated by the highly technical nature of the tool. They are now exploring ways to help SIGRA provide an additional service by building a prototype to aid the implementation of the OpenKAT digital privacy tool.
What are CSS projects for the future?
«As the program continues to grow, I am focused on expanding our partner network. Our aim is to establish long-term collaborations with organizations that have complex challenges, so we can contribute to their mission while providing our students with meaningful and challenging projects.
Through these partnerships, our students can gain hands-on experience tackling real-world problems. At the same time, our partners benefit from fresh perspectives and innovative solutions», Suzanne explains.
«Regarding our ongoing projects, on Friday, March 31st, 10 student groups will showcase their digital prototypes related to privacy and climate change at the Prototype Party. We will also welcome interested partners during this event. », she says.
We are eager to witness the outcomes of these collaborations and hope to meet you during this event, on March 31st from 14:00 - 17:00 on the second floor of the JK building (JK2.03 - JK2.13).
To learn more about the Computational Social Science programme, or to collaborate as a partner, you can contact Suzanne Hansen at: s.a.hansen@uva.nl