Since 2020, our group has been a meeting point for researchers at different career stages and with various backgrounds who share a common interest in the applications of data and computational social science in three interconnected areas: data mining, econometric modelling, and machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Our mission is to foster collaboration and the exchange of ideas in computational social science to foster research and disseminate specific knowledge and techniques to wider audiences. Our commitment to open science leads us to promote transparency and open access to our data, results, and processes in order to generate effective solutions to current challenges and foster a positive impact on society.
News and Columns
Since December 2019, our team has enthusiastically maintained the Chilean Political Science Ranking (CPS-Ranking), a quarterly assessment highlighting the scholarly impact of political scientists in Chile and those focused on Chilean topics through the measurement of their H-index based on Google Scholar profiles. Over five years, this initiative grew notably, starting modestly with 125 profiles and reaching 206 in our final edition in December 2024. This growth reflected genuine interest and recognition within the Chilean political science community, with scholars voluntarily joining or being recommended by their peers. We are deeply grateful for this engagement and the widespread support from researchers nationwide.
In November 2024, I started working on the TextClass Benchmark project, a dynamic, ongoing benchmarking initiative designed to evaluate Large Language Models (LLMs) and transformers for text classification tasks. The project’s focus on social sciences is significant as it addresses the growing need for effective text classification tools in this field. The current coverage includes domains such as digital incivility, policy agenda classification and an incipient classification on misinformation. The project has tested 98 models, including the novels GPT-4.5-preview, DeepSeek-R1 and Gemma 3, almost 3,500 times.
In the framework of the Digital Democracy Workshop 2024, held at the University of Zurich, two associate researchers from the Training Data Lab, Bastián González-Bustamante and Sebastián Rivera, presented a relevant study on digital incivility in political deliberation. In their paper entitled, “Toxicity and Digital Incivility during Political Deliberation: The Case of the Constitutional Convention in Chile”, these researchers explore the magnitude and determinants of non-civil comments directed towards politicians, focusing on the Chilean context.
Scientific journal articles