Welcome

Laboratorio Dati Economici Sociali e Territoriali. LADEST, founded in 2008, offers an environment for research and training on geography in the social sciences at the University of Siena.

The laboratory specialises in Geographic Information Systems, Spatial analysis, (Big) Data analysis, Data collection & Visualization, Social Network Analysis. We promote the development of spatial analysis methods and tools and combine them with mining and analysing spatial data, ranging from user-generated data (social media, location based apps, etc.) to traditional data sources (spatial databases, Census, surveys). Some recent research topics include volunteered geographic information, citizen science, environmental monitoring, sustainable development and political geography. A current topic of interest is digital platforms and platform urbanism. The Laboratory advances the development and usage of open data and open source tools through education, research and teaching and organizes workshops and events on specific topics. LADEST has partnered a 4 year COST Action IC1203 ENERGIC (2012-2016) on the harnessing geographic information from the crowd. The laboratory is member of a variety of transdisciplinary national project (PRIN 2017) on Short-Term City: Digital platforms and Spatial justice (https://www.stcity.it/), Digitally-enabled Social Innovation in the city: implications for urban spaces, societies and governance – DSICity (PRIN 2022) (https://dsicity.unisi.it/), and national projects such as Citizen Science for Siena – CS4Siena (https://cs4siena.unisi.it/). LaDEST offers stage and training opportunities for students at the University of Siena.