The peer-reviewed contributions gathered in this book address methods, software and applications of statistics and data science in the social sciences. The data revolution in social science research has not only produced new business models, but has also provided policymakers with better decision-making support tools. In this volume, statisticians, computer scientists and experts on social research discuss the opportunities and challenges of the social data revolution in order to pave the way for addressing new research problems. The respective contributions focus on complex social systems and current methodological advances in extracting social knowledge from large data sets, as well as modern social research on human behavior and society using large data sets. Moreover, they analyze integrated systems designed to take advantage of new social data sources, and discuss quality-related issues. The papers were originally presented at the 2nd International Conference on Data Science and Social Research, held in Milan, Italy, on February 4-5, 2019.

Paolo Mariani is a Full Professor of Economic Statistics at the Department of Economics, Management and Statistics, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy, where he teaches Economic Statistics and Business Statistics. The author of several publications and a frequent speaker at conferences and seminars, he is currently conducting research at the Bicocca-Applied Statistics Center (B-ASC).

Mariangela Zenga is an Assistant Professor of Social Statistics at the Department of Statistics and Quantitative Methods, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy, where she teaches Sampling for Audit, and Statistical Methods for Tourism. She also collaborates with the Centre for Statistical Science and Operational Research at Queen’s University Belfast, UK, and with the Bicocca-Applied Statistics Center (B-ASC).