# Web Science Trust

The Web Science Trust (WST) is a UK Charitable Trust with the aim of supporting the global development of Web science. It was originally started in 2006 as a joint effort between MIT and University of Southampton to formalise the social and technical aspects of the World Wide Web. The trust coordinates a set of international "WSTNet Laboratories" that include academic research groups in the emerging area of Web science.
It was first announced at MIT on 2 November 2006 as the Web Science Research Initiative (WSRI), changing its name in 2009 to the Web Science Trust. Tim Berners-Lee originally led this program, now run by a Board of Trustees, which aims to attract government and private funds to support their many activities. The Web Science Trust supports curriculum development in universities and research institutions to train future generations of Web Scientists. Given the similarities between Web Science and Information Science, Web Science overlaps with the interests of the ISchool movement, particularly in the United States, but focuses more specifically on the Web itself. The annual Web Science conference brings together participants from many fields including those studying both the social and the computational aspects of the World Wide Web.
Areas of interest include:
* Social networks
* Social machine
* Collaboration
* Understanding online community
* Analyzing the human interactions inherent in social media
* Web observatories
* Developing "accountability" and other mechanisms for enhancing privacy and trust on the Web.

## Key personnel

Directors/trustees
* Wendy Hall (managing director)
* Nigel Shadbolt
* James Hendler
* Noshir Contractor
* JP Rangaswami (chairman)
* George Metakides
* Steffen Staab
* Anni Rowland-Campbell
* Bill Thompson
Fellows
* Tim Berners-Lee (also Founding Director)
* Sir John Taylor
Patron
* Rennie Fritchie, Baroness Fritchie

## Conferences

The first Web Science conference (WebSci09: Society on Line) was sponsored in part by WSRI and was held in Greece in March 2009. The conference had over 300 registrants from a number of fields including computing, social science, law, economics, philosophy, psychology. The conference has since continued as a yearly event. The first fully virtual Web Science conference was held in July 2020 as a result of travel restrictions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Web Science conferences :
| Conference | Date | Place | Keynote speakers | registrants |
| Web Science 2024 | 21-24 May 2024 | Stuttgart-Vaihingen, Germany | Eszter Hargittai, Jie Tang, Dirk Hovy, Hannes Werthner | |
| Web Science 2023 | April 30-May 1, 2023 | Austin, Texas, USA | Bob Metcalfe, Dhiraj Murthy, David Rand | |
| Web Science 2022 | 26-29 June 2022 | Barcelona, Spain (Hybrid conference) | Leila Zia, M.C. Schraefel | |
| Web Science 2021 | 21-25 June 2021 | Southampton, UK (Virtual conference) | Deen Freelon, Martha Lane Fox | |
| Web Science 2020 | 7-10 July 2020 | Southampton, UK (Virtual conference) | Jim Hendler, Gina Neff | |
| Web Science 2019 | June 30 - July 3, 2019 | Boston, USA | Fabien Gandon, Sandra González-Bailón | |
| Web Science 2018 | 27-30 May 2018 | Netherlands, Amsterdam | Tim Berners-Lee, John Domingue | |
| Web Science 2017 | 26–28 June 2017 | Troy, NY, USA | Steffen Staab, Jen Golbeck | |
| Web Science 2016 | 22–25 May 2016 | Hannover, Germany | Daniel Miller, Andrew Tomkins, Daniel Olmedilla, Ricardo Baeza-Yates, Jure Leskovec, Helen Margetts | |
| Web Science 2015 | 28 June–1 July 2015 | Oxford, UK | Markus Strohmaier, Mia Consalvo, Rachel Gibson | |
| Web Science 2014 | 23–25 June 2014 | Bloomington, Indiana, USA | Wendy Hall, J.P. Rangaswami, Laura DeNardis, Daniel Tunkelang | |
| Web Science 2013 | 2–4 May 2013 | Paris, France | Vint Cerf, Cory Doctorow | |
| Web Science 2012 | 22–24 June 2012 | Evanston, Illinois, USA | Luis von Ahn, Sinan Aral, danah boyd, Jon Kleinberg, Sonia Livingstone, Siva Vaidyanathan | 200 |
| Web Science 2011 | 14–17 June 2011 | Koblenz, Germany | Barry Wellman, Jaime Teevan | 190 |
| Web Science 2010 | 26–27 April 2010 | Raleigh, North Carolina, USA | Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Jennifer Chayes, Melissa R. Gilbert | |
| Web Science 2009 | 18–20 March 2009 | Athens, Greece | Noshir Contractor, Nigel Shadbolt, Jacques Bus, Sir Tim Berners-Lee | 300+ |