From August 27-30, 2024, the European Sociological Association (ESA) held its biennial professional conference in Porto, titled Tension, Trust and Transformation. The event saw a record-breaking participation of over 4,000 sociologists from across Europe and beyond. Over the course of three days, presentations took place in more than 800 sections and plenary sessions at the University of Porto.
Representing the ARP project, Anna Horváth (CSS RDC) delivered a presentation titled Open Science – Can (and Should) It Be for Everyone? A Comparative Analysis of Two Surveys in the Biggest Research Network in Hungary in the Exploring Knowledge Transfer, Open Science, and Science Policy section. After briefly introducing the main aspects of Open Science, she presented key findings from two questionnaire surveys conducted within the ARP project in spring 2022 and summer 2024. Using responses from HUN-REN researchers, she illustrated which factors might limit the spread of Open Science. The post-presentation discussion mainly revolved around the integration of Open Science in Europe and comparisons of the perspectives of political actors, decision-makers, and researchers.
Another ARP team member, Róza Vajda (CSS RDC), participated in the Issues of Language and Technology section, where discussions focused on the linguistic and social challenges arising from digitalization and the spread of translation applications. In her presentation, Thematic Mapping of Oral History Interviews — by Phrases and Beyond: How Far Can NLP Be Stretched?, she explored the theoretical questions surrounding the use of machine learning methods in social research, particularly in content processing of interview collections. Examining human-machine collaboration in text indexing and thesaurus building, she highlighted challenges beyond purely linguistic aspects, as well as difficulties in validating these methods.
Both presentations were part of sessions organized by the Science and Technology virtual research network.