[agents] Call for contributions at the "Simulating In Crises (SIC)" special track at the Social Simulation Conference (4-8 September, Glasgow)

[loisv at cs.umu.se]

***Apologies for cross-posting.***

Dear colleagues,

If you are working on the topics of developing social simulation models for understanding and preparing for crises, please consider submitting your full articles, short papers/extended abstracts, and/or posters to the special track Simulating In Crises (SIC) at the Social Simulation Conference (4-8 September, Glasgow, UK).

Submission link: https://ssc23-sphsu.online/74-2/

Deadline: April 28th 2023

For details of the call, see below the signature.

This special track is supported by the ESSA SIG BRICSS (Building ResIlienCe with Social Simulations). For more information: f.giardini at rug.nl <mailto:f.giardini at rug.nl> , lois.vanhee at umu.se <mailto:lois.vanhee at umu.se> , christian.kammler at umu.se <mailto:christian.kammler at umu.se> , jason.thompson at unimelb.edu.au <mailto:jason.thompson at unimelb.edu.au> 

Looking forward to receiving your contributions,
Loïs, Christian, Francesca, Jason

Special track: Simulating In Crises (SIC)

Track chairs: 

Loïs Vanhée, Umeå University, Sweden

Christian Kammler, Umeå University, Sweden

Francesca Giardini, University of Groningen, The Netherlands

Jason Thompson, University of Melbourne, Australia

 

Social simulation is acknowledged to be a critical tool for dealing with crises impacting societies (e.g. COVID, conflicts, migration, climate change). Yet, the context of a crisis also fundamentally alters the process of developing simulations and their use: classic scientific methodologies, suited for slow-paced and meticulous paper production, are challenged by the urgency of crises involving stakeholder needs and understanding of the situation that can dramatically shift over time. At the personal level, modelers can abruptly become exposed to the public, involved in high-impact decisions, and required to bear heavy workloads, while risking to face retaliations should the model or its perception by the general public fail to match with reality and/or expectations. The development process is also put at stress and is open to unexpected risks, such as logistics and infrastructures that may be compromised and modelers suddenly becoming unreachable.

Currently, we have little to no knowledge on how to best produce simulations under crisis conditions, outside a few reported attempts. We therefore want to develop theories, tools, methods and resilience networks ahead of future crises to enable social simulation to be a trusted tool for decision makers.

 

This special track is dedicated to develop frames, techniques, and methods for better understanding what is central to the process of producing simulations in crises, validating them and using models and results to reach out to society. This track calls for input from a broad variety of disciplines and sectors (e.g. computer science, sociology, disaster studies, psychology, work organization, stakeholders), including inter- and trans-disciplinary research.

 

The call is open (but not limited to):

*	framing papers introducing theoretical foundations on how the crisis context impacts the process of designing simulations (e.g. software engineering, and policy makers, organizational prerequisites, trust building with stakeholders)
*	modelling papers proposing models of simulations built during a crisis (note: a clear emphasis is required on how the crisis has impacted the establishment of the model)
*	in-crisis method papers proposing solutions for researchers and designers to build simulations amid crises more effectively (e.g. technical tools for fast building of simulations, engineering methods, organisation guidelines, strategic funding schemes)
*	research method papers for researchers to assess whether their contribution enables increased resilience to crises
*	survey papers reviewing contents related to the establishment of models during crises, towards identifying common trends, patterns and impacts
*	vision papers identifying areas in society and/or social simulation describing potential future crises, common features of such crises, as well as courses of action for being ready to cover such crises (e.g. strategic plans and call to arms for dedicated institutions to be created)
*	translational papers translating or specifying frameworks describing how to achieve in-crisis activities from other frameworks to the context of a simulation (e.g. impact of urgency on coding, strategies for crisis-response)
*	critical papers scrutinizing the designs and implementations of simulation in crises, from perspectives such as critical theory, ethics, and impact.

 

Jensen, M., Vanhée, L., & Kammler, C. (2021). Social simulations for crises: from theories to implementation. In Social Simulation for a Crisis: Results and Lessons from Simulating the COVID-19 Crisis (pp. 39-84). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Vanhée, L. (2021). Engineering Social Simulations for Crises. In Social Simulation for a Crisis: Results and Lessons from Simulating the COVID-19 Crisis (pp. 353-378). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

 

Squazzoni, F., Polhill, J. G., Edmonds, B., Ahrweiler, P., Antosz, P., Scholz, G., ... & Gilbert, N. (2020). Computational models that matter during a global pandemic outbreak: A call to action.

 

Thompson, J., McClure, R., Scott, N., Hellard, M., Abeysuriya, R., Vidanaarachchi, R., ... & Sundararajan, V. (2022). A framework for considering the utility of models when facing tough decisions in public health: a guideline for policy-makers. Health Research Policy and Systems, 20(1), 1-7.

-------------------------

Loïs Vanhée, Ph.D.

Associate professor

 <https://www.umu.se/en/research/groups/responsible-artificial-intelligence/> Responsible Artificial Intelligence team

 <https://www.umu.se/en/department-of-computing-science/> Department of Computing Science

Umeå University

Umeå, Sweden

E-mail: lois.vanhee at umu.se <mailto:lois.vanhee at umu.se> 

Web: <https://www.umu.se/en/staff/lois-vanhee/>  https://www.umu.se/en/staff/lois-vanhee/

 

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