''Why on earth do you think this is useful to me?'': agent-based models for policy use

I will use this CRESS seminar to present some of my PhD work on adoption of soil conservation, and current postdoc work on the EU FP7 project - ePolicy - concerning adoption of photovoltaic solar panels. Both of these projects involve building an agent-based model (ABM) that is intended to be used by policy makers/policy analysts/policy stakeholders - whoever they are?! In presenting these two projects, and drawing out parts of the process that were/are interesting, painful and rewarding, I hope to lead into a more general discussion of the use of ABMs (and more broadly, research) in policy.

More details can be found at http://petergeorgejohnson.com