The Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare in collaboration with CREST/ENSAE, Paris, are inviting participants for a workshop on Sociogenomics, to be held in Helsinki, 4-7 September 2023. This workshop is part of the MEDIG project (Mental health and social disadvantage over the early life course: investigation into genes, families and living conditions) and INVEST flagship research centre (Inequalities, interventions and new welfare state) funded by the Academy of Finland.
The goals of this workshop is to give an introduction to sociogenomic work, discuss state-of-the-art challenges and opportunities, provide training in theory and practice, get in touch with the rich Finnish INVEST register data, and meet with other junior and senior researchers in the field. Participation does not require an a-priori knowledge in sociogenomics. The workshop will start with an introduction to the field and its promises for social sciences research followed by a series of keynotes, research presentations and practical exercises for the creation of polygenic scores and Mendelian Randomization analyses. A key component of the workshop will be to provide space for networking among scholars and provide mentoring for future sociogenomisists. Throughout the four days, we will explore recent developments, tensions and methodologies in the field of sociogenomics including genetically-informed register data, causal inference methods, the combination of the family design and genetic data, and challenges in the application of polygenic scores.
We are excited to have confirmed keynote presentations from Jani Erola (University of Turku), Eleanor Sanderson (University of Bristol), Andrea Ganna (University of Helsinki), Rosa Cheeseman (Norwegian Institute of Public Health) and Perline Demange (Free University of Amsterdam).
The full program can be found here.
The workshop takes place in the conference venue of the THL main office (Mannerheimintie 166 A, 00300 Helsinki).
There are no workshop fees, but participants are expected to cover their own travel and accommodation. Valo Hotel offers reduced rates for all participants and presenters (95e per night / 110e including wellness area access). We try to arrange partial funding for travel and/or accommodation in special cases. When registering, please provide a 100 words justification in case you require support for your participation.
Register here by June 18th. Please note that the number of places is limited.