The Maison de la Création et de l’Innovation (MaCI) hosted the study day 'Data and Methods in Social Sciences and Humanities', where sixty scientists presented new practices shaping SHS in the digital age. The event, co-organized by GRICAD, Pacte, AAU, and PUD-GA as part of the GATES project, highlighted the importance of SHS at the Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA), which comprises 24 laboratories and approximately 1,500 researchers and doctoral students. Julie Sorba, Vice-President for Research in SHS at UGA, emphasized the originality of the GATES project.
Discussions began by focusing on the territorial anchoring of research. Geographers and sociologists compared theoretical models of the '15-minute city' with the actual experiences of residents. A research-creation project also offered a novel sound immersion to give a voice to the Isère region during its urban journey.
The handling of highly protected data was another key topic. Teams discussed the creation of a knowledge graph to quantify the lethality of European borders and the secure access procedures for RSA statistical data to analyze the impact of social policies.
In light of the rise of artificial intelligence, the day highlighted the development of local and sovereign solutions. Leveraging GRICAD's computing infrastructure, researchers demonstrated the feasibility of querying vast corpora of theses or analyzing interview transcripts without relying on major web providers.
Finally, digital humanities and quantitative methods concluded the meeting. From rigorous meta-analysis protocols in psychology to the automatic transcription of 30,000-verse manuscripts, researchers showed how digital tools can enhance heritage sources while ensuring complete scientific transparency.
