SOCIOGRAPHY, MULTI KNOWLEDGE ACTIONS FOR RESEARCH AND ETHICS

Their core work

Sociography is an Italian research centre specializing in the social, ethical, and forensic dimensions of cybersecurity and online crime. They provide expertise in analysing terrorist-related online content, tracking financial flows behind malware campaigns, and combating online illegal trafficking. Their work bridges social science with digital forensics, supporting law enforcement agencies (LEAs) with tools and methodologies to understand and counter cyber-enabled crime.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Sociography's H2020 participation spans 2016–2021 with all three projects starting within a narrow two-year window (2016–2018). Early work centred on counter-terrorism intelligence (DANTE) and cybercrime financial forensics (RAMSES), while the most recent project (ANITA, 2018–2021) shifted toward online illegal trafficking — suggesting a broadening from specific cyber threats toward wider digital crime ecosystems. The progression shows movement from analysing specific malware types toward more comprehensive online crime investigation platforms.

Moving from narrow cybercrime forensics toward broader online crime investigation, positioning them for future work in digital evidence analysis and LEA-oriented platform development.

How they like to work

Sociography operates exclusively as a consortium participant, never leading projects, which suggests they contribute specialized social science or ethics expertise rather than driving technical development. With 41 unique partners across 14 countries from just 3 projects, they work in large, diverse consortia typical of EU security research. This breadth of partnerships indicates they integrate well into multi-disciplinary teams and bring a complementary perspective that technical partners often lack.

With 41 unique partners across 14 countries from only 3 projects, Sociography has built a wide European network concentrated in the security and law enforcement research community. Their consortia tend to be large (averaging ~14 partners per project), connecting them to police agencies, forensic labs, and cybersecurity firms across the EU.

What sets them apart

Sociography occupies a niche at the intersection of social science, ethics, and security technology — a combination rarely found in a single Italian research centre. While most security project partners are technical (cybersecurity firms, forensics labs), Sociography brings the human and societal dimension: understanding criminal behaviour, ensuring ethical standards, and translating technical outputs into actionable intelligence for law enforcement. For consortium builders, they fill the increasingly mandatory ethics and social impact requirements in EU security calls.

Highlights from their portfolio

• DANTE
  Largest single grant (€323,534) and focused on the high-profile challenge of detecting terrorist content online — a topic of major EU policy relevance.
• RAMSES
  Targeted the specific financial mechanics behind ransomware and banking trojans, producing forensic tools for tracking criminal money flows — a highly specialized and commercially relevant capability.