PhD student Magdalena Domínguez awarded funding for doctoral research on criminal networks using Big Data

The UB School of Economics and Barcelona Institute of Economics (IEB) doctoral student Magdalena Domínguez has been awarded a PhD grant by the Banc Sabadell Foundation. This funding, known as Ayudas a la Investigación 2018, will allow her to carry out a project to identify and explain criminal networks using Big Data.

“I am very honored to receive this grant. Not only it will provide me with better opportunities to carrying on high-quality research, but it will also allow me to improve its position in the field by increasing its diffusion”, Magdalena explained.

The main goal of Magdalena’s project is to identify real criminal networks using administrative data of registered crime in Catalonia. This will be done through an exhaustive Social Network Analysis. Such networks will later be fully characterised in order to explain what drives co-offending. This final step will shed light on criminal patterns, and will potentially lead towards more effective policies to fight and prevent crime. The UB School of Economics and IEB researcher Dr. Daniel Montolio is her PhD advisor.

“This is an ambitious research project since it deals with a topic of high relevance in the field. Moreover, it presents many novelties regarding data, empirical approach and policy implications”, Magdalena stated.

The Banc Sabadell Foundation awarded 15 ‘Ayudas a la Investigación 2018’ to researchers in the later stages of their PhD. These are aimed at funding research projects, research periods at national or foreign universities and research centres, as well as other activities related to the PhD thesis.

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