12月16日下午，2020年系列讲座收官之讲在UIC演艺厅成功举行。此次讲座是由UIC协理副校长（国际发展）、人文与社会科学学部院长贝力行（Adrian Bailey）教授为大家开讲。贝教授以“数字社会科学助力大湾区发展”为题，为在场数百名师生全面而专业地解读了两者之间的关系。讲座由中国语言文化中心伍鸿宇教授主持。

主讲人贝力行教授

伍鸿宇教授主持讲座

讲座伊始，贝教授提出了本次讲座的目标，即阐释数字社会科学相关的基本理念，总结数字社会科学在智慧区域和生活质量中的运用以及探究数字社会科学与人文科学之间的联系。

贝教授重点介绍了传统社会科学的研究领域：人类社会和社会关系。而后进一步阐述了社会实践、制度、福利、市场、定量和定性(实证主义)调查这些关键性的概念、思想和方法。同时也更详细地介绍了数字技术在新时代数字社会科学研究中的应用，如大数据，数据分析，健康与医疗。

贝教授讲大湾区的研究现状

贝教授指出，当数字技术成为日常生活的一部分的时候，技术进步也就导致了“智慧城市” 。在谈到大湾区智慧城市发展时，他系统描述了以商业为主导的城市发展，以创造力和服务为主导的经济，对教育和社会资本的优先投资以及生态和社会可持续发展的规划几大方面要素。

最后在问答环节，同学们就更多关于大湾区数字经济时代下，教育、政治等各方面的问题与贝教授进行了交流。

学生与贝教授互动交流

文：中国语言文化中心 汪文茜

图：中国语言文化中心 刘勇

                   学生  王骞晗

"Digital social science significant to GBA"

The Lecture Series on Contemporary World and China continued this month on 16 December with UIC Associate Vice President (Internationalization) and Dean of Division of Humanities and Social Sciences (DHSS), Prof Adrian Bailey as the speaker. Prof Bailey’s talk was entitled ‘Digital Social Science and the Development of the Greater Bay Area’.

Prof Bailey giving a lecture

Prof Bailey’s lecture discussed Digital Social Science (DSS) increasing the knowledge about the development of the Greater Bay Area as a globally significant social-technical system. He brought up the objectives of the lecture such as describing the fundamental ideas of DSS, summarise the use of DSS to understand smart region and quality of life, and the link between DSS and liberal arts education.

Prof Bailey highlighted areas about Traditional Social Sciences including human society and social relationships; as well as what it means to be a social being from the small scale of brain function to large system scale of demography, economy, politics, legal, environment, urban, communications, and culture.

Social practices, institutions, well-being, markets, quantitative and qualitative (positivist) inquiry are all apart of critical concepts, ideas, and approaches explained Prof Bailey. The lecture continued with Prof Bailey going into greater detail about the use of digital technologies in social science research such as big data and data analytics.

Prof Bailey explained how technological advancements have led to ‘Smart Cities’; this is when digital technology is part of daily life. Prof Bailey spoke about business-led urban development, creativity and service-led economy, priority investments in education and social capital, as well as planning for ecological and social sustainability.

At the end of the talk, there was a Q&A session where students eagerly asked about digital social science. Prof Bailey answered them confidently before the lecture came to an end.

From MPRO