Web Science is the study of the most complex artifact entangling technology, humans, and information ever created. Today the World Wide Web has evolved into billions of technical and human components operating globally, with each piece subtly influencing the others. To gain a deep understanding of the complex and multiple impacts the Web has on the daily life of individuals, organizations, and society as a whole, a strong interdisciplinarity is essential. Major scientific disciplines involved include (but are in no way limited to) Computer science, information science, sociology, psychology, and economy. Multiple perspectives across these disciplines are required to address pressing issues of our time and to gain insights on how the Web changes society just as much as society changes the Web.

Establishing a prime venue for Web Science as a dedicated research focus, the Web Science Conference has run every year since 2009 and has been a SIGWEB-sponsored  ACM conference since 2011. Join us in a celebration of 20 years of Web Science during the 18th ACM Web Science Conference in Brunswick, Germany. As Web Science is a strongly interdisciplinary field, we welcome quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods research, including techniques from the social sciences as well as from information and computer science.