An investment of €43m in 26 research projects through the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Investigators Programme has been announced today by Minister for Training, Skills, Innovation, Research and Development, John Halligan. 
 
The Science Foundation Ireland investment will support 26 research projects in key areas including mathematical modelling, nanoscience, inflammatory diseases, cancer, materials, cattle breeding, seismology, communications and climate change.

In his project , entitled "Mathematical Modelling of Social Spreading Phenomena" Professor James Gleeson and his team in the University of Limerick will develop new mathematical models to help revolutionise the understanding of how information spreads online.

They will develop an algorithm to identify the users of social networks who are the “superspreaders”, i.e., users whose retweets can make information travel faster than everyone else.

A better understanding of how information spreads through social influence will help us find ways to spread important information more quickly (e.g., for health or terrorism alerts), and to control undesirable aspects of social media such as the spreading of misinformation and false rumours

Find out more about the Gleeson group research here