Newsletter 3 Results of Nominations

The New Management Committee

Welcome to the third ESSA newsletter. Membership continues to grow - now well over 100 members. Nominations for the Management Committee (MC) closed at the end of November. We received nominations for all roles but no multiple candidates for a single role. However, nominees for the general MC roles came to nine rather than seven, so we decided to increase the size of the MC to accomodate two more members. We considered this to be a better solution than having a round of elections to decide on removing just two nominees from the MC!. There is therefore no requirement for elections and we are glad to announce the composition of the MC. The MC comprises:

• Prof. Scott Moss - President, webpage.
• Prof. Jaime Sichman - V.P. (Interest Groups), webpage.
• Prof. Klaus Troitzsch - Treasurer & website coordinator, webpage.
• Wander Jager - V.P. (Conferences), webpage.
• Bruce Edmonds - V.P. (Publications), webpage.
• Andre Meyer - V.P. (Industrial Liaison & Sponsorship).webpage.
• David Hales - Secretary, webpage.
• Additional MC members (without portfolio):
  • Frederic Amblard, webpage.
  • Prof. Helder Coelho, webpage.
  • Prof. Rosaria Conte, webpage.
  • Prof. Paul Davidsson. webpage.
  • Guillaume Deffuant, webpage.
  • Alexis Drogoul, webpage.
  • Prof. Nigel Gilbert, webpage.
  • Cesareo Hernandez Iglesias, No webpage.
  • Juliette Rouchier, webpage.

Greetings from the president

I am deeply honoured to be the first president of the European Social Simulation Association - especially as I am a relatively late arrival on the social simulation scene which was created by colleagues for whom we must all have enormous respect and gratitude.  Several of the creators of the European social simulation community have consented to serve in one capacity or another with ESSA.  So my special gratitude to Helder Coelho, Rosaria Conte, Nigel Gilbert and Klaus Troitzch, Jaime Sichman and Alexis Drogoul.  There were of course others who contributed crucially to the early days of European social simulation including Jim Doran, Rainer Hegselmann, Ramzi Suleiman and Edmund Chattoe.

A parallel organisation has been established in North America: the North American Association for Computational, Social and Organizational Science (NAACSOS).  The organisers of both ESSA and NAACSOS hope that other regional organisations will be established in Australasia and elsewhere.  We report below the formation within ESSA of an Ibero-American section to provide an organisational link for Latin American colleagues and to preserve the longstanding association between the Latin American and the Iberian social simulation communities.  Although the Latin American community is enthusiastic and strong, our colleagues there felt it was too small to support a separate regional association.  I am certain that the close and special bonds between the European and Latin American social simulation communities will easily survive the day that our Latin American colleagues feel able to establish a separate regional association.

Discussions have taken place with our North American colleagues concerning an annual joint conference.  The location and organisation of the joint conference will circulate among the regional associations.  In the years that we do not host the joint conference, we expect to have our own European conference that will, of course, be open to participants world-wide.

Membership of ESSA is now comfortably in excess of 100 and growing.  

The Ibero-American Special Interest Group (IA-SIG)

ESSA is proud to annouce the formation of the first ESSA special interest group. The Ibero-American group has been formed by members located within the Ibero/South American social simulation community (i.e. Spain, Portugal, Brazil, México and Venezuela). This highly active group of researchers, students and teachers make a significant contribution to the European social simulation community. The group exists to coordinate the activities of members within this region. Current members include: Jaime Simão Sichman, Helder Coelho, Maria das Graças Bruno Marietto, Juan de Lara, Manuel Alfonseca, Fernando Barros, José Castro Caldas, Michel Schilperoord, Klaus Jaffe, Gustavo Lugo, Jomi Fred Hübner, Nuno David, Luis Antunes, Adolfo López Paredes, Javier Pajares, Antonio Aguilera, Giorgio Tonella, Magdiel Ablan, Oswaldo Teran.

The next steps for ESSA

In early 2003 we hope to have a new ESSA website utilising the ".eu" domain. Future services offered by the site may include an open archive of social simulation papers, special interest group pages, discussion forums and a software resource archive.

Contribute to the next newsletter

If you feel you have something to contribute to future newsletters then do not hesitate to e-mail dave@cfpm.org with ideas or contributions.

Finally - encourage colleagues to register!

If you know of colleagues who have yet to register for ESSA then do encourage them to do so. Registering now allows them to participate in the formation of ESSA. Direct them to the ESSA webpage at: http://essa.cfpm.org. Additionally, if you are attending a relevant workshop or conference then please feel free to print out some copies of the following "flyer" available in pdf and ps and ms-word formats. Thanks to Frederic Amblard for this updated version of the flyer.

This newsletter was put together by David Hales dave@cfpm.org. A big thanks to Bruce Edmonds bruce@cfpm.org for setting-up and maintaining the ESSA discussion list.

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