ESSA - The European Social Simulation Association

ESSA Newsletter #4, April. 2003:

Newsletter 4

The First ESSA Conference & Membership Dues

ESSA is a professional association for those working within the European social simulation community.
An association created specifically to promote and support
European based social simulation at the researcher, practitioner and student levels.

Welcome to the fourth ESSA newsletter. Membership continues to grow - now over 130 members. Please continue to spread the word and encourage collegues (who haven't already) to join. In this issue you can find details of the first ESSA conference (with a deadline for abstracts just over one week away!) and a note from the Treasurer. Now is the time for those who have signed-up to ESSA to pay their memebership dues (it had to happen sooner or later). We are slightly behind schedule with our new website and the .eu domains have yet to be released by the regulatory authorities! However, all this will be comming soon - watch this space!

The First ESSA Conference (in association with SimSoc 6)

Greetings on behalf of the organizing committee of the ESSA workshop:
Andreas Flache, Wander Jager, Marco Janssen, Kees Zoethout.

The first conference of the European Social Simulation Association, will be held in Groningen, the Netherlands in September. Groningen, a vivid old city located up north in the Netherlands, is often referred to as the top of the Netherlands. The first European Social Simulation Association conference (formerly SIMSOCVI) to be held on September 18-21 2003 in Groningen has all necessary ingredients to become a top meeting in the field of social simulation. This is the first time ever that social simulation experts from all over Europe and beyond can come together and exchange their recent work under the umbrella of the newly founded ESSA. Therefore, we remind all researchers in social simulation of this opportunity. Different types of work will fit into the scope of this conference, such as:

formalizing behavioral theory in agent properties
simulating social phenomena that emerge from interactions of multiple agents (e.g. the evolution of norms)
simulating empirically based stylized social facts (e.g., typical dynamics of innovation diffusion)
simulating behavior in complex environments (e.g., traffic flows)

Of course this listing is far from complete, and other types of work that are relevant in the context of social simulation social are warmly welcomed. The conference provides an ideal setting for extended presentations and lively discussions. A time-slot of one full hour and assigned discussants will be available for each presentation. There is also the opportunity of poster presentations. More information on the ESSA conference and the city of Groningen can be found at: http://www.bdk.rug.nl/simsocvi/

Important Dates

If you intend to give a presentation we invite you to submit an extended abstract of about 2000-3000 words before MAY 1, 2003. This abstract should be emailed in plain text to: maajanss@indiana.edu. Decisions about acceptance will be announced by June 15, 2003. A full version of the paper should be submitted by September 1, 2003.

Reduced Registration Fee for ESSA Members

ESSA members in good standing (i.e. who have paid their subscription fee) will qualify for a reduced registration fee (the details of fees will be announced shortly). You can join ESSA on-line by going to http://essa.cfpm.org. Members who have yet to pay their ESSA subscription fee can do so via bank transfer or snail mail and cash (see the note from the treasurer below).

Travel Bursaries

ESSA will use subscription fee income will be used to supply a limited number of travel bursaries. To qualify for a bursary applicants should be a member of ESSA and either a student presenting a paper or an academic (presenting a paper) who can demonstrate financial need. The number, value and allocation of awards will be decided by the Management Committee of ESSA. Details of how to apply will be sent to all those with accepted abstracts in June.

Note from the Treasurer

Dear members of the European Social Simulation Association, this is the first circular from the treasurer, it is my duty to collect membership fees and to maintain the ESSA website. The new ESSA website will be up in May and open to all members of ESSA; much of it will also be open to the public, part of it will only be open to "members in good standing": those who paid their membership fees.

The management committee proposes an annual fee of 50 Euros for full members (30 Euros for student members). Since up to now it is not possible to charge your credit cards (which might have been the most convenient way to collect fees, but which also turned out to be both complicated and expensive), there are two ways to send me your fees:

Either you send 50 Euros into one of the following bank accounts:

Bank: Dresdner Bank AG Koblenz SWIFT-BIC: DRES DE FF 570, Account holder: Klaus G. Troitzsch for ESSA, Account number: IBAN: DE95 5708 0070 0604 3872 01. (from Germany the following information will be sufficient instead of the International Bank Account Number IBAN: BLZ 570 800 70, account no. 06 043 872 01
Bank: Spar+Leihkasse Frutigen, SIC 63618, Account holder: Klaus G. Troitzsch, Account number: 16 2.207.798.07 (for all those who have a Swiss bank account).

Sending money from a bank of one country to a bank of another country is often very expensive (up to more than 20 Euros !!), so you might waive this option and take the second:

Or you put 50 Euros in an envelope and send it to

Klaus G. Troitzsch
Universität Koblenz-Landau
Postfach 201 602
D-56016 Koblenz, Germany

The price of this is less than an Euro, and the risk that the money is lost is very small. Anyway, if you use the option of sending money by snail mail, you should also send me an e-mail announcing it to me at: kgt@uni-koblenz.de. Members in good standing will get registration fee reductions at ESSA conferences. The fees will be used to organise conferences, to open bursaries for some of the participants and to be able to give a student best-paper award at conferences.

All the best
Prof. Klaus G Troitzsch, Treasurer, ESSA
www.uni-koblenz.de/~kgt

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. A big thanks to Bruce Edmonds for setting-up and maintaining the ESSA discussion list.

Return to the ESSA homepage