Netsci Conference

The International School and Conference on Network Science, also called NetSci is an annual conference focusing on networks. It is organized yearly by the Network Science Society. Physicists are especially prominently represented among the participants, though people from other backgrounds attend as well. The study of networks expanded at the end of the twentieth century, with increasing citation of some seminal papers.

Following this increase in interest from the scientific community, network science was examined by the National Research Council (NRC), the arm of the US National Academies in charge of offering policy recommendations to the US government. NRC assembled two panels, resulting in recommendations summarized in two NRC Reports, offering a definition of the field of network science. These reports not only documented the emergence of a new research field, but highlighted the field’s role for science, national competitiveness and security. The NetSci was set up to address the need to the new and emerging highly interdisciplinary network science community to meet and exchange ideas.

History

The formal NetSci conference series was preceded by several meetings:

• XVIII Sitges Conference (2002)
• COSIN Project Midterm Conference (2003)
• CNLS Annual Conference 2003: Networks, Structure, Dynamics and Function, May 12–26, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Organized by Zoltán Toroczkai, Eli Ben-Naim, Hans Frauenfelder, Pieter Swart, supported by Los Alamos National Laboratory.
• Aveiro Conference CNET 2004 August 29-September 2 (2004)
• School and Workshop on Structure and Function of Complex Networks, ICTP Trieste May 16–28 (2005)

In 2006 these events became part of an organized structure with one network conference per year.

• NetSci 2006 May 16–25, Indiana University Bloomington, USA. Organized by Albert-László Barabási, Katy Börner, Noshir Contractor, Alessandro Vespignani and Stanley Wasserman.
• NetSci 2007 May 20–25, Notre Dame University, USA
• NetSci 2008 June 23–27, Norwich University, UK
• NetSci 2009 June 29-July 3, INFM, Istituto Veneto, Venice, ITALY. Organized by Guido Caldarelli (chair) and Vittoria Colizza (co-chair).
• NetSci 2010 May 10–14, Northeastern University/MIT Boston, USA
• NetSci 2011 June 1–6, Hungarian Academy of Science, Budapest, HUNGARY
• NetSci 2012 June 18–22 Northwestern University, Evanston, USA
• NetSci 2013 June 3–7, Niels Bohr Institute/Technical University, Denmark
• NetSci 2014 June 2–6, University of California, Berkeley, USA
• NetSci 2015 June 1–5, University of Zaragoza, SPAIN
• NetSci 2016 May 30-June 3, Korean Academy of Science, Seoul, Korea. Organized by Hawoong Jeong (general chair), Guanrong Chen (co-chair), and Reka Albert (co-chair).
• NetSci 2017 June 19–23, Indiana University Network Science Institute, Indianapolis, USA.

In 2015, the Network Science Society added an additional, shorter regional conference, called NetSci-x, held in January:

• NETSCI-x 2015 January 14–16, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• NETSCI-x 2016 January 11–13, Wrocław, Poland
• NETSCI-x 2017 January 15–18, Tel-Aviv, Israel, Organized by Dr. Erez Shmueli of Tel-Aviv University and Dr. Baruch Barzel of Bar-Ilan University.

Plenary speakers

2015

• Edward Bullmore (2015),
• Raissa D´Souza (2015);
• Jordi García-Ojalvo (2015),
• Jürgen Kurths (2015),
• Tomas Saraceno (2015, dinner speaker),
• Alessandro Vespignani (2015);

2016

• Albert-László Barabási (2016),
• Janos Kertesz (2016)
• Jeong Han Kim (2016)
• Olaf Sporns (2016)

Event structure

The NetSci conference generally starts with two days of satellite meetings organized by different people, and classes offering an introduction into different aspects of network science. The formal NetSci conference starts on Wednesday, and has a series of keynote speakers, invited speakers, and contributed talks in parallel sections.

Erdős–Rényi Prize

The Erdös-Rényi Prize in Network Science is awarded annually at the NetSci meeting,