The VOSON Lab was formally established in 2005 with an Australian Research Council Special Research Initiative grant. Our funding is via the Australian Research Council (five grants to date), Defence Science Technology Group, and a current Volkswagen Foundation (AI and Society of the Future Stream) grant led by Bielefeld University.
Australian Research Council (ARC) Grants
Ackland, R. (2013). Understanding Online Attention and User-Generated Content Creation: An Information Consumption and Production Perspective. Australian Research Council Discovery Grant DP140103688 ($225,000, 2014-2016).
Henman, P., R. Ackland, and H. Margetts (2010). The Institutional Structure of E-government: a Cross-policy, Cross-country Comparison. Australian Research Council Discovery Grant DP110100446 ($300,000; 2011-2013).
Booth, H., R. Ackland, and T. Windsor (2009). The Role of Online Social Networks in Successful Ageing:Benefitting from ‘Who You Now’ at Older Ages. Australian Research Council Linkage Grant LP0990974. Funding amount includes $120,000 contribution by industry partner, National Seniors Australia ($390,000, 2009-2012).
Ackland, R., R. Gibson, M. O’Neil, et al. (2005). Virtual Observatory for the Study of Online Networks (VOSON). Australian Research Council Special Research Initiative, E-Research Support Grant SR0567298 ($98,586, 2005).
Ackland, R. and R. Gibson (2004). New Methods for Researching the Existence and Impact of Political Networks on the WWW. Australian Research Council Discovery Grant DP0452051 ($150,000, 2004-2006).
International Grants
Cimiano, P., F. Muhle, O. Putz, B. Schiffhauer, E. Esposito, R. Ackland, U. Seelmeyer, T. Veale (2020). Bots Building Bridges (3B): Theoretical, Empirical, and Technological Foundations for Systems that Monitor and Support Political Deliberation Online. Volkswagen Foundation Grant in AI and the Society of the Future stream (2021-2025).
Cimiano, P., R. Ackland, E. Esposito, T. Graham, M. Hartung, F. Muhle, O. Putz, B. Schiffhauer, U. Seelmeyer (2019). Unbiased Bots that Build Bridges (U3B): Technical Systems that Support Deliberation and Diversity as a Chance for Political Discourse. Volkswagen Foundation Planning Grant in AI and the Society of the Future stream ($70,150, 2020).
Ackland, R. and T. Graham (2016). Socialbots as Political Actors? Autonomous Communication Technologies as Tools and Objects for Digital Sociology. Australia – Germany Joint Research Co-operation Scheme 17-18 Universities Australia – German Academic Exchange DAAD; collaborating with Dr Florian Muhle, Faculty of Sociology, Bielefeld University ($16,250, 2017-2018).
Xie, L., R. Ackland, and P. Thomas (2013). Collaboration with Tsinghua University Beihang University and CityU-Shenzhen and others to strengthen Australia-China cooperation in computational social Science and Research into Information Diffusion in Social Media. Australia-China Science Research Fund Grant ACSRF06323. Grant awarded by the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education ($40,000, 2013).
ANU Grants
Smith, D., R. Ackland, M. Rahissi and F. Borquez (2019). Developing an Interdisciplinary Approach to Understanding Indigenous Australian Governance Networks. ANU RSSS Inter-School Grant ($15,000, 2020).
Ackland R., A. Mackenzie, M. Rahisi, D. Halpin, J. Stachurski, F. Muhle and T. Venturini (2019). ANU Social Dynamics of Attention Centre. ANU Global Research Partnership Scheme. Partners F. Muhle (Bielefeld University, Germany) and T. Venturini (Centre for Internet and Society, National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), France) ($40,000, 2019-2020)
Rizoiu M.A., T. Graham, J. Davis, R. Ackland, Xie, L., and Halpin, D. (2018). Advanced tools and methods for analysing the role and influence of bots in social media. ANU Research School of Social Science, Cross-College Research Grant.
Ackland R. and T. Graham (2017). Web Application for Teaching the Collection and Analysis of Social Media Data. ANU Vice-Chancellor’s Teaching Enhancement Grant ($9,515).
Ackland, R., K. Bode, R. Broadhurst, R. Broadhurst, D. Halpin, P. Kelly, J. Lamond, G. Roe, J. Simpson, G. Smith, and C.Travis (2014). Obtaining New Insight from Big Data: Humanities and Social Science Research at Scale. ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences Internal Grants Scheme ($9,990, 2014).
Ackland, R. and L. Xie (2012). Computational Social Science Weblab. ANU Vice-Chancellor’s Teaching Enhancement Grant ($10,000, 2013).
Travel Grants
Ackland, R. (2017). Incoming visitor scholar award, International Visitor Exchange Scheme (IVES), UK National Centre for Research Methods International.
Ackland, R. (2012). Travel grant to attend the Fourth International Workshop on Network Theory: Networked Social Movements, jointly organised by the Annenberg Networks Network (ANN) and SONIC, held at the University of Southern California, 26-28 April.
Ackland, R. (2011). Travel grant to attend Third International Workshop on Network Theory: Web Science Meets Network Science jointly organised by the Annenberg Networks Network (ANN) and SONIC, held at Northwestern University, 4-6 March.
Ackland, R. (2008). Travel grant to attend 4th International Conference on E-Social Science, Manchester, 18-20 June 2008.
Ackland, R. (2007). UK National Centre for E-Social Science Visiting Fellowship, Oxford University James Martin Visiting Fellowship. Six months visit to Oxford Internet Institute.
Ackland, R. (2005). Travel grant to attend NSF-funded Social Networks and Cyberinfrastructure (SNAC) workshop held at National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Nov 3-5, 2005.