Manchester Social Networks Group

SNA research interests and activities of Manchester Social Network Group members

Mark Tranmer

Mark Tranmer is a senior lecturer in social statistics based at CCSR in the School of Social Sciences. Alongside his research interests in Social Network Analysis (SNA), Mark is interested in research involving multilevel modelling as well as methods for combining data from multiple sources.

Mark’s main research interests in SNA are currently 1) The role of geographical groups, social networks, and households in social statistics 2) The development and application of models for multilevel network structure 3) Network effects in muliltevel analysis 4) The use of mulitlevel modelling for social network analysis.

As well as doing research in SNA, Mark co-ordinates and teaches on the Social Network Analysis 3-day course run in Manchester every January, as well as a module on SNA for the MSc in Social Research Methods and Statistics, and has experience of visualising networks in Pajek and modelling networks using Exponential Random Graph Models via Statnet in R and using PNET. Mark also has experience of modelling social networks with multilevel models, via MLwiN, when appropriate. Mark visited the Melbourne Social Networks group for a week in November 2007, where he gave a presentation entitled 'what can we learn from geographical analysis that may be useful for social network analysis?', and visited again in December 2008.

Mark is principal investigator on a 3 year bilateral project investigating 'the role of geographical groups, households and social networks in social statistics'. This project is jointly funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) in the UK, and the Australian Research Council (ARC). The team includes Mark Tranmer, Mark Elliot (Manchester, UK), David Steel, Ray Chambers, Robert Clark (Centre for Statistical and Survey Methodology, Wollongong, Australia). The project commenced in August 2008 for 3 years. poster

Mark and colleagues were recently successful in securing funding from the Leverhulme trust to form a 'Multilevel Network Modelling Group' international collaborative network. The project involves Pip Pattison and Garry Robins (Melbourne); Tom Snijders and Johan Koskinen (Oxford); Stanley Wasserman (Indiana); Noshir Contractor (Northwestern); Emmanuel Lazega (Paris-Dauphine); Alessandro Lomi (Lugano); Mark Tranmer, Mark Elliot (Manchester); Rafael Wittek (Groningen). This 3 year project is likely to commence in October 2009. ( Project guide [.pdf] ; project website )

Mark is also doing Social Network Analysis as Part of the ESRC NCeSS programme node : “e-STAT –NCeSS quantitative node”: Sept 2009 - Aug 2012. Mark Tranmer is a co-investigator. The principal investigators are based in Bristol and Southampton. The research programme includes a project on Social Networks in Multilevel structures, being carried out by Mark Tranmer and Jon Rasbash.

A set of slides on Statistical Models for Social Networks. These were presented at a special social networks day, as part of the methods@manchester programme, feb 15th 2010.

Some slides that summarise Mark's research interests and recent activities in Social Networks and Social Statistics can be found here. This presentation was given at the Launch of Social Statistics in Manchester, January 2009.

Mark is currently the contact person and co-ordinator for the Manchester Social Networks Group and may be contacted as follows:

Tel: 0161 275 4744

Fax: +44 (0) 161 275 4722

Email: Mark.Tranmer "at" manchester.ac.uk

University Webpage: http://www.ccsr.ac.uk/staff/markhome1.htm

Dr Mark Tranmer

Room G25

CCSR

School of Social Sciences

Kantorovich Building

Humanities Bridgeford Street

University of Manchester

MANCHESTER

M13 9PL

England

Martin Everett

Martin Everett is Professor of Social Network Analysis based in Sociology in the School of Social Sciences. Martin has over 30 years research experience in the field, is a co-author of the software package UCINET and was President of the International Network of Social Network Analysts from 2000 to 2003. Martin has provided consultancy and designed and run short courses on network analysis to a variety of companies and organizations nationally and internationally. These include organisations from both the public sector such as the Home Office, MoD, Dstl, Demos and Defra; and the private sector such as Unilever, Qinitiq, Astaire (Italy), Towers-Perrin (USA). These organizations have been looking at the application of social network analysis in a wide variety of areas for example; criminal networks, radicalisation, viral marketing, team building, re-structuring, movement of livestock and inter-organizational collaborations.

Martin’s main research interests are in the development and applications of methods for analysis; he is particular interested in centrality, positional analysis and core-periphery models but has also worked on 2-mode data, cohesive subgroups and algebraic models.

He is also tasked with developing and co-ordinating social network analysis across all the disciplines in the university with the aim of re-establishing Manchester as one of the leading centres in the world for the subject.

Main Recent Relevant Publications:

Analyzing Social Networks (with S P Borgatti and J Johnson) Book in preparation.

Why are Networks the shape they are? Working paper (with S P Borgatti)

Missing data: some reflections. Presented at the Sunbelt Social Networks Conference 2009, San Diego Califormia USA

Recent network evolution increases the potential for large epidemics in the British cattle population. Journal of The Royal Society Interface Volume 4, Number 15 / August 22, 2007 S.E. Robinson, M.G. Everett, R.M. Christley

A graph-theoretic framework for classifying centrality measures. Social Networks 28(4): 466-484 2006

Borgatti, S.P. and Everett, M.G. Extending Centrality. In PJ Carington, J Scott and S Wasserman (eds) Models and Methods in Social Network Analysis, pages 57-75. CUP New York 2005.

M. Everett and S.P. Borgatti

Ego-Network Betweenness. Social Networks. 27(1): 31-38 2005

Everett, M.G., and Borgatti, S.P Some Centrality Results New and Old. Journal of Mathematical Sociology, 2004,vol 28 (4) 215-228.

M G Everett, P Sinclair and P Dankelmann

Nick Crossley

Nick Crossley is a professor and head of Sociology in the School of Social Sciences here at Manchester. He is the organiser of the British Sociological Association's social network analysis group (SNAG) and also of a related jisc-mail discussion group, which is open to anybody with an interest in social network analysis. To be included in this list please contact Nick directly (nick.crossley@manchester.ac.uk).

Nick has written on the small world world problem, on the role of networks within social movements and on the formation and effect of networks within the context of a private health club. He is currently using SNA and network ideas to think about wider forms of collective formation and action (in particular the early punk and post-punk 'scenes' in Manchester, Liverpool and London) and is also exploring, in a more purely theoretical vain, the relationship of networks to our understanding of both social interaction and social structure.

Main Recent Relevant Publications:

Crossley, N. (2005) The New Social Physics and the Science of Small World Networks, The Sociological Review 53(2), 351-8.

Crossley, N. (2008) Social Networks and Extra-Parliamentary Politics, Sociology Compass, http://www.blackwell-compass.com/home_sociology_compass

Crossley, N (forthcoming) Small World Networks, Complex Systems and Sociology, Sociology.

Crossley, N (under review) Social Movements and Strudent Networks: On the Politicising Effect of Campus Connections.

Crossley, N. (forthcoming) (Net)working Out: Social Capital in the Gym, British Journal of Sociology

Fiona Devine

Fiona Devine is a Professor of Sociology at Manchester with research interests in comparative social stratification and mobility (US and UK), work and employment and politics and participation.

Her interest in social networks arises out of her work on social class and the reproduction of advantage by the middle classes. Drawing on Goldthorpe's theory about the mobilities of economic, cultural and social resources, empirical research in the US and UK led her to consider how social networks influence how parents take advice about good schools and other educational decisions from people in their networks and how these processes contribute to class reproduction. She is interested in developing a qualitative dimension to social network analysis which considers issues of trust others, shortcuts in decision-making and herd behaviour.

Main Recent Relevant Publications:

(2004) Class Practices: How Parents Help Their Children Get Good Jobs (Cambridge: CUP)

(2008, forthcoming) `Class Reproduction and Social Networks in the US' in L.

Weis (ed.) The Way Class Works: Reading on School, Family and the Economy (New

York: Routledge).

These ideas were last presented at the launch conference of the Social Research Centre at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia in 2006.

Fiona is interested in developing social network analysis in future research on working-

class reproduction and in relation to debate on social capital and voluntary activism.

Gemma Edwards

Gemma Edwards is a Lecturer in Sociology, School of Social Sciences, at the University of Manchester. She works in areas relating to social movements, activism, political participation and social theory.

I am using SNA primarily to explore issues around social movements and activism. I am interested in how qualitative data can be used and combined in quantitative SNA approaches. To this end, I am involved in a project with my colleague, Nick Crossley, which focuses on the letter writing network of British Suffragettes and uses archived letters as a source of data. This data can produce sociograms in pajek, but can also offer a textual, in depth, analysis of what is actually passing between people in the network, what it does, and what it means to them. In this respect, I want to further explore the interplay between social networks and cultural resources. This feeds into another project I am developing about the political participation of young people. In this project I will explore not just how pre-existing social networks may supply future generations with structural opportunities for involvement, but how social networks intersect with other cultural and symbolic resources necessary for participation, including ‘collective memories’.

Working paper:

‘Letter Writing Networks and Militant Activism; the case of Helen Watts, Suffragette’, (with Nick Crossley).

Grant Proposal:

‘The Letter Writing Network of the Suffragettes’, with Nick Crossley and Sheila Rowbotham.

Inderjeet Parmar

Inderjeet Parmar is interested in US foundation-funded knowledge networks and the role they play in the rise of American hegemony from the 1920s through to the post-9-11 period. His research has focused on the Carnegie, Rockefeller and Ford foundations who funded networks of scholars across the US university and think tank communities (specifically developing Area Studies and International relations teaching and research programmes, associations and journals) as well as across the rest of the world. Parmar's research has exmained the power of knowledge networks in cementing US hegemony in Indonesia, Chile, and Nigeria.

He is currently writing a monograph entitled, Foundations of the American Century: Ford, carnegie and Rockefeller Foundations and US Foreign Affairs, 1920-2005 (forthcoming, Columbia University Press).

Gindo Tampubolon

Gindo's work revolves around stratification and social mobility in general using two well-known British cohort surveys (the National Child Development Survey 1958 and the British Cohort Study 1970). Additionally he is working on a completely different area of innovation studies; most recently explaining knowledge growth, over the last 30 years, in a clinical treatment to heart failure and another to glaucoma conditions using social network analysis. He is also interested in scientists and inventors collaboration networks particularly in the area of biomedical science and pharmaceutical. Data from these networks are harvested from the web using web clients in Java and Simple Object Access Protocol. Works in these areas require analysis of mid-sized network in the order of tens of thousands.

Alan Warde

Alan Warde is Professor of Sociology in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Manchester. He is also associated with the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (formerly the Centre for Research in Innovation and Competition (CRIC)) and the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC).

He has been involved in two ESRC projects using social network analysis. The first (1999-2002) ‘Social Capital and Social Networks’, ESRC Programme on Democracy and Participation (with Brian Longhurst, Mike Savage and Mark Tomlinson), which looked at local political associations, their different network structures and the consequences. The basis of the project was an analysis of the role of social capital in contemporary political organization in the UK. The second (2003-6) was 'Social Capital and Consumption: promoting network analysis', part of the ESRC Programme on Research Methods (with Nick Crossley, Mike Savage, John Scott and Gindo Tampubolon). This project involved some further analysis of the data on social capital and various training activities.

In both cases I conducted some work on the relationship between network position and consumption behaviour, and it is in this area that my interests are focused. This has involved some analysis of friendship patterns and some work on how network characteristics affected involvement in eating and drinking events. There is also a network analysis component of the ESRC project ‘Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion’ (with Tony Bennett, Mike Savage and Elizabeth Silva) where we have position generator data which can be used to interpret patterns of cultural consumption (on music, visual art, TV, etc.). I am planning to continue to conduct research on these topics using social network analysis.

Fay Bradley

Fay is a research associate in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Science. Her research interests include 'Networks of interaction between pharmacists and other health professionals'.

Laura Morales

Laura Morales is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Social Change. She is currently working on a project that analyses the social capital and the political incorporation of migrants in various European and Spanish cities (more at: http://www.um.es/localmultidem).
One of the main data collection tools employed in this project is a survey to migrants' associations that includes extensive information on the network connections of these organisations among themselves and with non-migrant local organisations (e.g. political parties, trade unions, NGOs, etc.). Multiple analyses of this network information will be possible but, among other, we will be particularly interested in exploring how network connections and properties affect the political agency of migrants' associations in the local public sphere.

Rebecca Morris

Becci is a Research Training Fellow in the National Primary Care Research and Development Centre at the University of Manchester. She has a BA in Psychology and a MSc in Global Health at the University of Dublin, Trinity College, Ireland. During her MSc she completed a thesis titled “A formative evaluation of the TB Photovoice Project, Thailand” during which time she worked as an intern at the Health and Development Networks in Thailand.

Becci's PhD is titled "The role of social capital and social networks in understanding patients' response to self-management initiatives in primary care" and is being supervised by Professor Anne Rogers, Dr. Caroline Sanders and Dr. Anne Kennedy. Her main research interests include: social capital, social networks, the role of culture in health, addressing inequalities in health, empowerment of disadvantaged groups and the role of research in advocacy and policy formation.

Stewart Muir

Stewart Muir is a Research Associate within the ESRC Real Life Methods Node, based in Sociology, School of Social Sciences, at the University of Manchester. His research interests include new religious movements, contemporary British kinship and family, the ethnography of the home, and Australian Aboriginal peoples in urban and rural Victoria.

I am part of a project component bid, with Nick Crossley, which will use participant observation, qualitative interviews and SNA to examine networks of social movement activists in Manchester. The project will explore the social life of activists outside of the arena of protest and will analyse in depth the relationships which bind them. This will also involve investigation of the intersection of activist networks with other social and kinship networks and social circles.

Daniela D’Andreta

Daniela is a PhD student in Sociology (supervised by Professor Nick Crossley) at the University of Manchester. She has a degree in International Politics and a background in urban regeneration and community projects. Her MSc dissertation ‘The ‘Buy in’ to City and Locality; the Role of Social Networks in Interspatial Analysis’ explores the relationship between the structure of ego networks and identification with spatiality for residents of North and East Manchester.

Her research interests are interdisciplinary and apply a synergy of ‘relational’ theories to elucidate the dynamics of social networks in the following areas of focus - the consumption of urban space, social capital, social distance, security, competition, inequality/constraint and complexity.

Elizabeth Lucena

Beth Lucena is a PhD student in CCSR (supervised by Mark Tranmer) at the University of Manchester. She has a background in governance and public policy, with professional experience in governance and tenant participation in social housing. Previously a Masters student in Politics at Manchester, Beth’s research interests relate to developments in local/ neighbourhood governance and the promotion of ‘active’ citizenship within the current civic-democratic renewal agenda.

Beth’s PhD is a case study of citizen involvement in governance which will be undertaken in collaboration with East Manchester New Deal for Communities. The study incorporates an examination of the social networks of East Manchester residents and a small number of local public service practitioners to map the social and professional relationships which have developed through citizen involvement activity, their nature and their purpose. The study aims to aid understanding of the impact of citizen involvement on the lives of individuals and policy outcomes.

Manchester Social Networks Group
Home Events Courses Research Publications Masters and PhD Study People Links CCSR Social Statistics	SNA research interests and activities of Manchester Social Network Group members Mark Tranmer Mark Tranmer is a senior lecturer in social statistics based at CCSR in the School of Social Sciences. Alongside his research interests in Social Network Analysis (SNA), Mark is interested in research involving multilevel modelling as well as methods for combining data from multiple sources. Mark’s main research interests in SNA are currently 1) The role of geographical groups, social networks, and households in social statistics 2) The development and application of models for multilevel network structure 3) Network effects in muliltevel analysis 4) The use of mulitlevel modelling for social network analysis. As well as doing research in SNA, Mark co-ordinates and teaches on the Social Network Analysis 3-day course run in Manchester every January, as well as a module on SNA for the MSc in Social Research Methods and Statistics, and has experience of visualising networks in Pajek and modelling networks using Exponential Random Graph Models via Statnet in R and using PNET. Mark also has experience of modelling social networks with multilevel models, via MLwiN, when appropriate. Mark visited the Melbourne Social Networks group for a week in November 2007, where he gave a presentation entitled 'what can we learn from geographical analysis that may be useful for social network analysis?', and visited again in December 2008. Mark is principal investigator on a 3 year bilateral project investigating 'the role of geographical groups, households and social networks in social statistics'. This project is jointly funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) in the UK, and the Australian Research Council (ARC). The team includes Mark Tranmer, Mark Elliot (Manchester, UK), David Steel, Ray Chambers, Robert Clark (Centre for Statistical and Survey Methodology, Wollongong, Australia). The project commenced in August 2008 for 3 years. poster Mark and colleagues were recently successful in securing funding from the Leverhulme trust to form a 'Multilevel Network Modelling Group' international collaborative network. The project involves Pip Pattison and Garry Robins (Melbourne); Tom Snijders and Johan Koskinen (Oxford); Stanley Wasserman (Indiana); Noshir Contractor (Northwestern); Emmanuel Lazega (Paris-Dauphine); Alessandro Lomi (Lugano); Mark Tranmer, Mark Elliot (Manchester); Rafael Wittek (Groningen). This 3 year project is likely to commence in October 2009. ( Project guide [.pdf] ; project website ) Mark is also doing Social Network Analysis as Part of the ESRC NCeSS programme node : “e-STAT –NCeSS quantitative node”: Sept 2009 - Aug 2012. Mark Tranmer is a co-investigator. The principal investigators are based in Bristol and Southampton. The research programme includes a project on Social Networks in Multilevel structures, being carried out by Mark Tranmer and Jon Rasbash. A set of slides on Statistical Models for Social Networks. These were presented at a special social networks day, as part of the methods@manchester programme, feb 15th 2010. Some slides that summarise Mark's research interests and recent activities in Social Networks and Social Statistics can be found here. This presentation was given at the Launch of Social Statistics in Manchester, January 2009. Mark is currently the contact person and co-ordinator for the Manchester Social Networks Group and may be contacted as follows: Tel: 0161 275 4744 Fax: +44 (0) 161 275 4722 Email: Mark.Tranmer "at" manchester.ac.uk University Webpage: http://www.ccsr.ac.uk/staff/markhome1.htm Dr Mark Tranmer Room G25 CCSR School of Social Sciences Kantorovich Building Humanities Bridgeford Street University of Manchester MANCHESTER M13 9PL England Martin Everett Martin Everett is Professor of Social Network Analysis based in Sociology in the School of Social Sciences. Martin has over 30 years research experience in the field, is a co-author of the software package UCINET and was President of the International Network of Social Network Analysts from 2000 to 2003. Martin has provided consultancy and designed and run short courses on network analysis to a variety of companies and organizations nationally and internationally. These include organisations from both the public sector such as the Home Office, MoD, Dstl, Demos and Defra; and the private sector such as Unilever, Qinitiq, Astaire (Italy), Towers-Perrin (USA). These organizations have been looking at the application of social network analysis in a wide variety of areas for example; criminal networks, radicalisation, viral marketing, team building, re-structuring, movement of livestock and inter-organizational collaborations. Martin’s main research interests are in the development and applications of methods for analysis; he is particular interested in centrality, positional analysis and core-periphery models but has also worked on 2-mode data, cohesive subgroups and algebraic models. He is also tasked with developing and co-ordinating social network analysis across all the disciplines in the university with the aim of re-establishing Manchester as one of the leading centres in the world for the subject. Main Recent Relevant Publications: Analyzing Social Networks (with S P Borgatti and J Johnson) Book in preparation. Why are Networks the shape they are? Working paper (with S P Borgatti) Missing data: some reflections. Presented at the Sunbelt Social Networks Conference 2009, San Diego Califormia USA Recent network evolution increases the potential for large epidemics in the British cattle population. Journal of The Royal Society Interface Volume 4, Number 15 / August 22, 2007 S.E. Robinson, M.G. Everett, R.M. Christley A graph-theoretic framework for classifying centrality measures. Social Networks 28(4): 466-484 2006 Borgatti, S.P. and Everett, M.G. Extending Centrality. In PJ Carington, J Scott and S Wasserman (eds) Models and Methods in Social Network Analysis, pages 57-75. CUP New York 2005. M. Everett and S.P. Borgatti Ego-Network Betweenness. Social Networks. 27(1): 31-38 2005 Everett, M.G., and Borgatti, S.P Some Centrality Results New and Old. Journal of Mathematical Sociology, 2004,vol 28 (4) 215-228. M G Everett, P Sinclair and P Dankelmann Nick Crossley Nick Crossley is a professor and head of Sociology in the School of Social Sciences here at Manchester. He is the organiser of the British Sociological Association's social network analysis group (SNAG) and also of a related jisc-mail discussion group, which is open to anybody with an interest in social network analysis. To be included in this list please contact Nick directly (nick.crossley@manchester.ac.uk). Nick has written on the small world world problem, on the role of networks within social movements and on the formation and effect of networks within the context of a private health club. He is currently using SNA and network ideas to think about wider forms of collective formation and action (in particular the early punk and post-punk 'scenes' in Manchester, Liverpool and London) and is also exploring, in a more purely theoretical vain, the relationship of networks to our understanding of both social interaction and social structure. Main Recent Relevant Publications: Crossley, N. (2005) The New Social Physics and the Science of Small World Networks, The Sociological Review 53(2), 351-8. Crossley, N. (2008) Social Networks and Extra-Parliamentary Politics, Sociology Compass, http://www.blackwell-compass.com/home_sociology_compass Crossley, N (forthcoming) Small World Networks, Complex Systems and Sociology, Sociology. Crossley, N (under review) Social Movements and Strudent Networks: On the Politicising Effect of Campus Connections. Crossley, N. (forthcoming) (Net)working Out: Social Capital in the Gym, British Journal of Sociology Fiona Devine Fiona Devine is a Professor of Sociology at Manchester with research interests in comparative social stratification and mobility (US and UK), work and employment and politics and participation. Her interest in social networks arises out of her work on social class and the reproduction of advantage by the middle classes. Drawing on Goldthorpe's theory about the mobilities of economic, cultural and social resources, empirical research in the US and UK led her to consider how social networks influence how parents take advice about good schools and other educational decisions from people in their networks and how these processes contribute to class reproduction. She is interested in developing a qualitative dimension to social network analysis which considers issues of trust others, shortcuts in decision-making and herd behaviour. Main Recent Relevant Publications: (2004) Class Practices: How Parents Help Their Children Get Good Jobs (Cambridge: CUP) (2008, forthcoming) `Class Reproduction and Social Networks in the US' in L. Weis (ed.) The Way Class Works: Reading on School, Family and the Economy (New York: Routledge). These ideas were last presented at the launch conference of the Social Research Centre at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia in 2006. Fiona is interested in developing social network analysis in future research on working- class reproduction and in relation to debate on social capital and voluntary activism. Gemma Edwards Gemma Edwards is a Lecturer in Sociology, School of Social Sciences, at the University of Manchester. She works in areas relating to social movements, activism, political participation and social theory. I am using SNA primarily to explore issues around social movements and activism. I am interested in how qualitative data can be used and combined in quantitative SNA approaches. To this end, I am involved in a project with my colleague, Nick Crossley, which focuses on the letter writing network of British Suffragettes and uses archived letters as a source of data. This data can produce sociograms in pajek, but can also offer a textual, in depth, analysis of what is actually passing between people in the network, what it does, and what it means to them. In this respect, I want to further explore the interplay between social networks and cultural resources. This feeds into another project I am developing about the political participation of young people. In this project I will explore not just how pre-existing social networks may supply future generations with structural opportunities for involvement, but how social networks intersect with other cultural and symbolic resources necessary for participation, including ‘collective memories’. Working paper: ‘Letter Writing Networks and Militant Activism; the case of Helen Watts, Suffragette’, (with Nick Crossley). Grant Proposal: ‘The Letter Writing Network of the Suffragettes’, with Nick Crossley and Sheila Rowbotham. Inderjeet Parmar Inderjeet Parmar is interested in US foundation-funded knowledge networks and the role they play in the rise of American hegemony from the 1920s through to the post-9-11 period. His research has focused on the Carnegie, Rockefeller and Ford foundations who funded networks of scholars across the US university and think tank communities (specifically developing Area Studies and International relations teaching and research programmes, associations and journals) as well as across the rest of the world. Parmar's research has exmained the power of knowledge networks in cementing US hegemony in Indonesia, Chile, and Nigeria. He is currently writing a monograph entitled, Foundations of the American Century: Ford, carnegie and Rockefeller Foundations and US Foreign Affairs, 1920-2005 (forthcoming, Columbia University Press). Gindo Tampubolon Gindo's work revolves around stratification and social mobility in general using two well-known British cohort surveys (the National Child Development Survey 1958 and the British Cohort Study 1970). Additionally he is working on a completely different area of innovation studies; most recently explaining knowledge growth, over the last 30 years, in a clinical treatment to heart failure and another to glaucoma conditions using social network analysis. He is also interested in scientists and inventors collaboration networks particularly in the area of biomedical science and pharmaceutical. Data from these networks are harvested from the web using web clients in Java and Simple Object Access Protocol. Works in these areas require analysis of mid-sized network in the order of tens of thousands. Alan Warde Alan Warde is Professor of Sociology in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Manchester. He is also associated with the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (formerly the Centre for Research in Innovation and Competition (CRIC)) and the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC). He has been involved in two ESRC projects using social network analysis. The first (1999-2002) ‘Social Capital and Social Networks’, ESRC Programme on Democracy and Participation (with Brian Longhurst, Mike Savage and Mark Tomlinson), which looked at local political associations, their different network structures and the consequences. The basis of the project was an analysis of the role of social capital in contemporary political organization in the UK. The second (2003-6) was 'Social Capital and Consumption: promoting network analysis', part of the ESRC Programme on Research Methods (with Nick Crossley, Mike Savage, John Scott and Gindo Tampubolon). This project involved some further analysis of the data on social capital and various training activities. In both cases I conducted some work on the relationship between network position and consumption behaviour, and it is in this area that my interests are focused. This has involved some analysis of friendship patterns and some work on how network characteristics affected involvement in eating and drinking events. There is also a network analysis component of the ESRC project ‘Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion’ (with Tony Bennett, Mike Savage and Elizabeth Silva) where we have position generator data which can be used to interpret patterns of cultural consumption (on music, visual art, TV, etc.). I am planning to continue to conduct research on these topics using social network analysis. Fay Bradley Fay is a research associate in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Science. Her research interests include 'Networks of interaction between pharmacists and other health professionals'. Laura Morales Laura Morales is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Social Change. She is currently working on a project that analyses the social capital and the political incorporation of migrants in various European and Spanish cities (more at: http://www.um.es/localmultidem). One of the main data collection tools employed in this project is a survey to migrants' associations that includes extensive information on the network connections of these organisations among themselves and with non-migrant local organisations (e.g. political parties, trade unions, NGOs, etc.). Multiple analyses of this network information will be possible but, among other, we will be particularly interested in exploring how network connections and properties affect the political agency of migrants' associations in the local public sphere. Rebecca Morris Becci is a Research Training Fellow in the National Primary Care Research and Development Centre at the University of Manchester. She has a BA in Psychology and a MSc in Global Health at the University of Dublin, Trinity College, Ireland. During her MSc she completed a thesis titled “A formative evaluation of the TB Photovoice Project, Thailand” during which time she worked as an intern at the Health and Development Networks in Thailand. Becci's PhD is titled "The role of social capital and social networks in understanding patients' response to self-management initiatives in primary care" and is being supervised by Professor Anne Rogers, Dr. Caroline Sanders and Dr. Anne Kennedy. Her main research interests include: social capital, social networks, the role of culture in health, addressing inequalities in health, empowerment of disadvantaged groups and the role of research in advocacy and policy formation. Stewart Muir Stewart Muir is a Research Associate within the ESRC Real Life Methods Node, based in Sociology, School of Social Sciences, at the University of Manchester. His research interests include new religious movements, contemporary British kinship and family, the ethnography of the home, and Australian Aboriginal peoples in urban and rural Victoria. I am part of a project component bid, with Nick Crossley, which will use participant observation, qualitative interviews and SNA to examine networks of social movement activists in Manchester. The project will explore the social life of activists outside of the arena of protest and will analyse in depth the relationships which bind them. This will also involve investigation of the intersection of activist networks with other social and kinship networks and social circles. Daniela D’Andreta Daniela is a PhD student in Sociology (supervised by Professor Nick Crossley) at the University of Manchester. She has a degree in International Politics and a background in urban regeneration and community projects. Her MSc dissertation ‘The ‘Buy in’ to City and Locality; the Role of Social Networks in Interspatial Analysis’ explores the relationship between the structure of ego networks and identification with spatiality for residents of North and East Manchester. Her research interests are interdisciplinary and apply a synergy of ‘relational’ theories to elucidate the dynamics of social networks in the following areas of focus - the consumption of urban space, social capital, social distance, security, competition, inequality/constraint and complexity. Elizabeth Lucena Beth Lucena is a PhD student in CCSR (supervised by Mark Tranmer) at the University of Manchester. She has a background in governance and public policy, with professional experience in governance and tenant participation in social housing. Previously a Masters student in Politics at Manchester, Beth’s research interests relate to developments in local/ neighbourhood governance and the promotion of ‘active’ citizenship within the current civic-democratic renewal agenda. Beth’s PhD is a case study of citizen involvement in governance which will be undertaken in collaboration with East Manchester New Deal for Communities. The study incorporates an examination of the social networks of East Manchester residents and a small number of local public service practitioners to map the social and professional relationships which have developed through citizen involvement activity, their nature and their purpose. The study aims to aid understanding of the impact of citizen involvement on the lives of individuals and policy outcomes.