The undersigned
wish to propose the formation of a European Social Simulation Association
(ESSA). Recognising parallel interests
and developments in North America and Autralasia, we would intend ESSA to
coordinate with similar organisations in those and other regions to organise an
international federation to support the development of social simulation
research, education and application.
The objectives
of ESSA would be to:
·
Encourage the
development of social simulation in Europe and more widely.
·
Promote
international cooperation among those working in the field while recognising
the distinctiveness of European social simulation research
·
Promote and
support the development of European post-graduate courses and qualifications in
social simulation
·
To liaise with
other groups to reduce unnecessary clashes in the scheduling of conferences,
meetings and workshops relating to social simulation
·
Support and
organise regular regional and international conferences
The society would
be composed of members who would pay a modest subscription and who would elect
officers and a management committee charged with developing the European
association and participating in the establishment of a wider international
federation of this and similar associations worldwide.
Computational
social science as a method and as an approach to analysing the social world has
been growing in popularity in the past decade.
From modest beginnings in the early 1990s, the field now has many
meetings and conferences, is linked to two journals (JASSS and CMOT),
and is becoming more visible to graduate students wanting to write doctoral
theses using simulation.
One sign of the
vitality of the area is the growing number of papers being submitted to JASSS. Another is the proliferation of meetings
worldwide with a simulation or agent-based modelling theme. Although these are healthy signs of
‘self-organised’ growth, a number of contributors to the field feel that the
time has come to promote its development in a more orderly way.
In September 2001,
the fifth workshop in the SimSoc series was held in Kazimierz Dolny, Poland and
at the end of that meeting, it was resolved to start a ‘Society for Social
Simulation’.
Independently, a
few weeks later at the Sackler Colloquium of the US National Academy of
Sciences on “Adaptive Agents, Intelligence and Emergent Human Organization”,
held in Irvine, California, some of those present also concluded that a society
for social simulation would be desirable. There are now a number of proposals
to start graduate programmes in social simulation in the US and several annual
workshops and conferences are running or planned (for example, the CMOT and
CASOS series at Carnegie-Mellon, the Agent 200x series in Chicago, and the Lake
Arrowhead series run from UCLA, the first of which will be held in May 2002).
Kathleen Carley of Carnegie-Mellon volunteered to promote the idea among North
American groups.
In Europe, in
addition to SimSoc, there is also the Agent-Based Social Simulation SIG of
Agentlink, the International Conferences on Social Simulation, the series of
meetings held at Schloss Dagstuhl, and numerous other events.
There is also much
activity in Asia, especially in Japan, and in Australasia and there is a need
for better contacts at an international level.
The undersigned
members of the European social simulation research community wish to encourage
these international developments. At
the same time, we believe that European research in social simulation has a
distinctive character that we wish to preserve and develop. This character is itself diverse and
interaction among scholars following these diverse approaches has been
constructive and has led to a number of progressive developments. We would distinguish between European
developments from much, though by no means all American research with its
widespread concern to build directly and clearly on conventional social and, in
particular, economic theory. While the
European, American and other research communities have much in common, we also
have our differences and value our respective approaches. For this reason, we would like to see the
establishment of independent regional or national social simulation societies
with an overarching federation, the purpose of which will be to sustain a constructive
and creative dialogue among adherents to the different approaches.
We aim to establish
the ESSA before the end of 2002.
Meanwhile, comments on this proposal, and offers of help (including, for
example, assisting with drafting a constitution, collecting a list of
forthcoming conferences and meetings, maintaining a membership list and
administrating subscriptions, and so on) would be gratefully received. Please send offers and comments to David
Hales at d.hales@mmu.ac.uk.