Networks are pervasive in our society. Informally speaking, networks comprise a collection of agents, interacting locally with other agents. Biological, information, social, and technological (BIST) networks consist of large numbers of interacting components that together produce a "global system" with properties that are the result of interactions among the representations of the local system elements. Today's urban infrastructures are networked and include power grids, communication networks and transportation networks. We also have a variety of social networks that form the fabric of various kinds of diffusion processes, such as scholarship, commerce, epidemics, and the spread of fads. These include social contact networks, online social networks, on-line blogs and chat rooms, etc. Finally, biology has seen a flurry of activity in viewing biological systems as networked systems, including protein interaction networks, metabolic networks, neuronal networks, etc. The scientific foundations of complex BIST networks is still in its infancy.

As a part of the special year on Network Science, IMI has organized a number of workshops, conferences and short courses on this topic. The culminating event of the special year will comprise a nine-day long school followed by an International conference.

The introductory school will cover the mathematical, statistical and computational aspects of Network Science especially social, biological and economic networks. It will provide a broad overview of the area with illustrative applications as well as discuss real world examples. The school will comprise a number of short courses that will taught by well known experts in this emerging field.

The International conference will feature a broad range of talks related to network Science. Invited speakers have been chosen to cover the breadth of the field, from an application as well as from a conceptual standpoint. It will provide a forum for active discussions.

The Conference is funded by Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research(JNCASR).