Two professors of our department, Luca Braghieri and Daniele Durante have been awarded two ERC grants, respectively for projects titled "SOME (Social Media: Measuring Effects and Mitigating Downsides)" and "NEMESIS (sociogeNEsis of criMinal nEtworks: reconStruction, dIscovery, and diSruption)"

Luca Braghieri’s ERC project SOME (Social Media: Measuring Effects and Mitigating Downsides) has two main objectives: firstly, to address gaps in our understanding of how social media affect individuals and society, and secondly, to assess the effectiveness of interventions to counteract the negative aspects of social media. The overarching goal is to generate new scientific knowledge about the use and impact of social media, identify potential areas for policy interventions, and evaluate practical solutions to mitigate downsides.

Daniele Durante’s project NEMESIS (sociogeNEsis of criMinal nEtworks: reconStruction, dIscovery and diSruption), combines Statistics and Social Sciences to address key challenges in understanding and combating modern criminal networks. It views current barriers in data incompleteness and complexity not as hindrances but as valuable resources to expand research and policies. By recognizing the presence of structure underlying missing data and of unexplored knowledge behind complex interactions among criminals, the project develops innovative modeling perspectives in criminal network analysis. This vision is expected to revolutionize current approaches to reconstructing, analyzing and disrupting criminal networks while creating opportunities to expand data resources, social theories and law-enforcement policies.