Completed Projects

Nigel Gilbert and Ozge Dilaver

Constructed Complexities – A Network of Scholars and A Workshop Series

Complexity theory and social constructionism are two important meta-theories that have evolved from very different worldviews and knowledge bases. The two meta-theories are also associated with very different research objectives, approaches and methods. Yet, there are some important similarities between the core arguments of the two meta-theories and these similarities are largely neglected in methodological debates.

In essence, both meta-theories reject reductionist, time, space and relationship-free analyses of positivist or Newtonian social science. While social constructionism reveal existence of multiple realities and viewpoints, history and context dependence of reality and the role of social embeddedness; complexity theory studies heterogeneous populations and the role of stochasticity, path-dependence of processes, the role of interactions and interdependencies and properties of social networks.

Hence, there are interesting similarities between the two meta-theories, which can be important for interdisciplinary or intermeta-theory social research. At the same time, integration of research at both sides may not necessarily be seamless or instantaneous. Complexity theorists and social constructionists approach these issues with different interpretations and research objectives. There are important differences between the ontological and epistemological assumptions underlying the two meta-theories. This project aims to initiate an international network of scholars working together to identify conflicts or differences as well as links and similarities between complexity theory and social constructionism. As a first route, the network of scholars will follow existing connections in institutional approaches and exchange ideas at three workshops and a final conference. These events will be organized by Manchester and Surrey Universities and the project has co-investigators from University of Maryland, Arizona State University, University of Chicago, University of California, Los Angeles (USA), University of Brescia (Italy) and Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands). The first workshop will be in May 2013 and the events will continue until the final conference in September 2013.

Funding: ESRC

Duration: May 2013 to April 2015

Tina Balke

This workshop brings together experts from the social sciences, humanities and behavioural sciences with social simulation specialists and computational model builders. It focuses on artificial sociality rather than intelligence and tries to address the following two points in particular:

1. The operationalisation of human behaviour in realistic settings (where perfect rationality is not applicable anymore), as well as
2. The Investigation of the interplay of bottom-up and top-down approaches to study complex systems.

The workshop aims to lead the way to a research agenda that can harness the power of social science theories for the modelling community in a more thorough way than was hereto possible, aided by advances in computer technology and modelling experience. We invite contributions from all research disciplines that:

1. Describe social science theory-inspired computational models of human behaviour in realistic settings, or
2. Present theories of human behaviour in computational form, or
3. Examine models focussing on computational social science, social computer science and the relation between the two.

The workshop aims to provide a meeting point for researchers with the aim of facilitating future interactions and research.

Funding: IAS, University of Surrey

Duration: 23-24 June 2014

On the Influence of Norms and Sanctions on Socio-Technical Systems Governance - An Agent-based Simulation Approach

UNIVERSITY GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP AWARD

Tina Balke and Nigel Gilbert have been awarded a grant from the UPGN scheme for a project in collaboration with the Universities of São Paulo and North Carolina State to study the influence of norms and sanctions on governance. Society is increasing its dependence on information technology in order to deal with more complex environments, such as socio-technical systems.

These systems are complex adaptive systems in which social entities and technologies co-evolve. One natural form to implement governance in these systems is through the use of norms and sanctions. While the concept of a norm is already well defined, sanctioning lacks a precise definition in the socio-technical domain. Moreover, it is known that both concepts influence socio-technical systems’ behaviour; however, their influence is difficult to measure in a real environment. The project will analyse how norms and sanctions influence systems behaviour through an agent-based simulation approach. The analysis will be applied to energy infrastructure to identify what combination of norms and sanctions promote a reduction in consumers' energy consumption.

ERIE will address a series of fundamental questions relating to the application of complexity science to social and economic systems. The programme aims to embed cutting-edge complexity science methods and techniques within prototype computational tools that will provide policymakers with realistic and reliable platforms for strategy-testing in real-world socio-economic systems.

The ERIE programme is a £4.2 million research venture funded by the EPSRC, involving investigators from the Departments of Sociology, Mathematics, and Computing and the Centre for Environmental Strategy.

Using mathematical and computational approaches we will model the layered, nested, multiscale systems of two case studies: "The Development of an Industrial Ecosystem on the South Humber Bank, North Lincolnshire" and "Resilient Food Supply Chains to Support Food Security and Global Sustainable Development".

The vision is to provide models of multi-level socio-economic systems that are useful for decision-makers aiming to 'steer' towards policy-relevant goals.

ERIE project is part of the Complexity Science for the Real World Group (CSRWG)

The GLODERS research project is directed towards development of an ICT model for understanding a specific aspect of the dynamics of the global financial system: Extortion Racket Systems (ERSs). ERSs, of which the Mafia is but one example, are spreading globally from a small number of seed locations, causing massive disruption to economies. Yet there is no good understanding of their dynamics and thus how they may be countered. ERSs are not only powerful criminal organizations, operating at several hierarchical levels, but also prosperous economic enterprises and highly dynamic systems, likely to reinvest in new markets.  If stakeholders - legislators and law enforcers - are to be successful in attacking ERSs, they need the much better understanding of the evolution of ERSs that computational models and ICT tools can give them.

GLODERS will provide a theory-driven set of computational tools, developed through a process of participatory modelling with stakeholders, to study, monitor, and possibly predict the dynamics of ERSs, as they spread from local through regional into global influence.

The research will draw on expertise already developed in the small, but highly experienced multidisciplinary consortium to use:

• computer-assisted qualitative text mining of documentary evidence;

• guided semi-automatic semantic analysis of stakeholder narratives and other textual data; and

• multi-level, stakeholder-centred agent-based modelling of the distributed negotiations between normative agents.

These methods will advance the state of the art for using data to inform policy decisions.

Throughout, the project will interact with a large, international group of stakeholder representatives from EU Ministries of Justice and police forces. The output will provide a set of ICT tools to facilitate strategic policies that could prevent the further penetration and extension of the global menace posed by ERSs.

The GLODERS project is supported by the European Commission's Framework Programme 7 from October 2012 to September 2015.

IMAGES was a EU project that developed a simulation model for EU policymakers to help them design better 'Agri-Environmental Measures' (contracts with farmers that pay them to farm in a more environmentally desirable way).

The Freshwater Integrated Resource Management with Agents (FIRMA) project

FIRMA, from 1 March 1999 - 28 February 2003, was concerned with improving water resource planning by developing and applying agent-based modelling to integrate physical, hydrological, social and economic aspects of water resource management.

SimWeb (IST-2001-34651) was a three-year project to provide European businesses in the digital contents sector with insights and tools which will enable them to take informed business strategy decisions and become more competitive by adapting their traditional business models to the new, demanding reality. To achieve this objective, SimWeb has designed and implemented sector models based on reusable multi-agent simulation technology.

SimWeb (IST-2001-34651) project was co-funded by the 5th Framework Programme of the European Community - managed by the European Commission - and forms part of the Information Society Technologies (IST) activities.

The strategic objective of the Information Society Technologies (IST) Programme is to realise the benefits of the information society for Europe both by accelerating its emergence and by ensuring that the needs of individuals and enterprises are met. 

New and Emergent World Models Through Individual, Evolutionary and Social Learning (FP6-IST-3752-FET) is a three year, collaborative project that will grow a virtual society developed by agent-based simulation. 

The project will evolve an artificial society capable of exploring the environment and developing its own image of this environment and the society through cooperation and interaction. Working with virtual grid worlds and environments that are sufficiently complex and demanding that communication and cooperation are necessary to adapt to the given tasks, it is hoped the virtual society will exhibit individual learning, evolutionary learning, and social learning.

NEMO will investigate the interplay between political governance, structure and function of politically induced R&D collaboration networks, in particular the networks that have emerged in the European Framework Programmes.

NEMO is a project supported by the New and Emerging Science and Technology programme of the sixth Framework Programme of the European Commission. It started on 1st September 2006 and continues for three years.

Project partners are: ARC systems research GmbH (ARC sys), Vienna University of Technology, Institute of Discrete Mathematics and Geometry (TU Wien), Universidade da Madeira, Centro de Ciências Matemáticas – CCM (UMa), University of Bielefeld, Department of Physics/Research Center BiBoS (UniBi), Maastricht University, UNU-MERIT (MERIT), Université du Luxembourg, Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance (UniLu), University of Bremen, Economics Department (UniHB), and University of Hamburg, Research Centre Media and Politics (UniHH).

The objective of NEMO is to investigate the interplay between political governance, structure and function of politically induced R&D collaboration networks, in particular the networks that have emerged in the European Framework Programmes. The ultimate goal is to identify ways to create and to appraise desirable ('optimal') network structures for typical functions of such R&D collaboration networks (e.g. knowledge creation, transfer and (distribution). This will aid policymakers at all political levels in improving the effectiveness and efficiency of network-based policy instruments at promoting the knowledge economy in Europe.

The SIMIAN (Simulation: a Node) project is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council to promote and develop social simulation in the UK. The project was started in the summer of 2008, and involves a collaboration between CRESS and Dr Edmund Chattoe-Brown at the University of Leicester. SIMIAN is a node of the National Research Methods Centre.

The project involves three "demonstrator" simulations chosen to address important social science challenges:

1. Interaction: Where many theories exist across the social sciences, how can simulation be used to integrate and compare them so that social science as a whole can progress?

2. Novelty: How can simulation develop theories in which meanings and capabilities of objects are not "given" but change and develop in use and social interaction?

3. Norms: Different social sciences understand and measure norms in different ways. How can they be integrated to produce effective theories?

These three demonstrators will form the basis for a range of training and capacity building activities:

1. Taster courses to show what simulation can do.

2. Build-a-model courses to show how to build a first working simulation.

3. Specialised courses to train advanced users in specific topics.

In addition, there will be presentations at conferences and workshops, user fellowships to encourage collaboration between users and academics, and international exchange visits.