Invited talk at MABS, London, May 2023. Slides at: https://cfpm.org/slides/BE-MABS-2023.pdf
Discussion Papers
- A declaration of Social Simulator Rights! · 7 September 2023
- A challenge to the ABM/Social simulation community: *helping people agree* · 7 September 2023
- New joint paper: What do you want theory for? - A pragmatic analysis of the roles of “theory” in agent-based modelling · 25 August 2023
- Paper: Meyer & Edmonds "The importance of dynamic networks within a model of politics" · 28 February 2023
- New comment: The inevitable “layering” of models to extend the reach of our understanding · 15 February 2023
All discussion papers »
News and Events
- Making Models FAIR: An educational initiative to build good ABM practices · 11 May 2023
- Interdisciplinary Workshop on Opinion Dynamics and Collective Decision 2023, July 12-14, Bremen · 3 April 2023
- Call for Expressions of Interest: Alternative simulation models of the emergence of inequality · 2 March 2023
- New paper "Cognition and Hypocognition: Discursive and simulation-supported decision-making within complex systems" by Gary Polhill and Bruce Edmonds (291) · 18 February 2023
- Review of "Escape from Model Land. How Mathematical Models Can Lead Us Astray and What We Can Do About It" · 5 January 2023
All past news »
News
Slides from MABS talk: Combining Constraint-Based and Imperative Programming in MABS for More Reliable Modelling 30 May 2023
Making Models FAIR: An educational initiative to build good ABM practices 11 May 2023
Article and Launch of ToBeFair.org educational site to build good ABM practices. Article is at https://rofasss.org/2023/05/11/fair/
Interdisciplinary Workshop on Opinion Dynamics and Collective Decision 2023, July 12-14, Bremen 3 April 2023
3 day workshop at the “Constructor University” (formerlyh Jackob’s Uni.) on all aspects of social influence modelling. Reasonably cheap (but in my experience good) student style accommodation available. Funded by the DFG. Details at http://odcd2023.janlo.de/
Call for Expressions of Interest: Alternative simulation models of the emergence of inequality 2 March 2023
We are trying to find a community of simulation modellers who are interested in developing simulation models that exhibit alternative processes that leads to inequality (of whatever kind). To be follow by a longer-term community, grant applications and workshops.
New paper "Cognition and Hypocognition: Discursive and simulation-supported decision-making within complex systems" by Gary Polhill and Bruce Edmonds (291) 18 February 2023
Part of a forthcoming special issue on “Simulation and Dissimulation”. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2023.103121
Review of "Escape from Model Land. How Mathematical Models Can Lead Us Astray and What We Can Do About It" 5 January 2023
A review by Bruce Edmonds of “Escape from Model Land by Erica Thompson”. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation Jan 2022. https://www.jasss.org/26/1/reviews/1.html
New Paper: The practice and rhetoric of prediction – the case in agent-based modelling 31 October 2022
Edmonds, B. (2022) The practice and rhetoric of prediction – the case in agent-based modelling, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, DOI: 10.1080/13645579.2022.2137921
Rigour for Agent-Based modelling 16 September 2022
The slides and paper from the talk at Social Simulation 2022 in Milan (#ssc2022). Along with links to other papers on rigour. http://cfpm.org/rigour
Workshop on Artificial utopias (Agent-based models of utopian societies) 10 September 2022
Monday 12th September 16.00-17.15 CEST. (Room 13 Social Simulation Conference, Milan + online)
This workshop addressed the use of agent-based models to articulate utopias in a formal, reproducible and transparent way in any area and at any level of abstraction, including, for instance, post-capitalist economies, post-nation state worlds, algorithmic money and post-money societies and any new utopias never previously presented. Critical discussion and opinion pieces are welcome. It follows a previous workshop entitled “Envisioning Post-Capitalist Societies via Simulation – Critique, Utopias and Agent Based Modelling”.
Special Issue on Using agent-based simulation for integrating qualitative and quantitative evidence 23 August 2022
Special issue of “Social Research Methodology” on “***Using agent-based simulation for integrating qualitative and quantitative evidence***” is now out. See http://cfpm.org/qual2rule/si-ijsrm-abm-intqq/ for details.
"Populism and Civic Engagement" (PaCE) project ended, results available 28 May 2022
A call for expressions of interest in attending the Aug. 15-19 2022 workshop in Leiden, NL 7 April 2022
A call for expressions of interest in attending this Lorentz Workshop – deadline 15th May.
New Paper: GAM on! Six ways to explore social complexity by combining games and agent-based models 28 March 2022
New paper with our Ruth Meyer See https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13645579.2022.2050119
CfP "Artificial Utopias" workshop @ Social Simulation 2022, Milan September 23 March 2022
See the full Call for papers. For details about the conference see https://ssc2022.behavelab.org/
Variety of Sessions at Social Simulation (September 2022, Milan) 22 March 2022
Slides and paper from APSA paper on "An agent-based model of protest diffusion and thresholds" 22 December 2021
Slides from our 2021 American Political Science Association presentation, work by Stephanie Dornschneider and Bruce Edmonds, based on the model at http://cfpm.org/modelz/237.
Recording, slides and links to papers for "Simulating Politics" online workshop, 17 Nov 2021 28 November 2021
EU Conference on Modelling for Policy Support 18 November 2021
EU conference on modelling for policy support next week – free streams available. Including our paper on the need for systematic model comparison in the session on “Ensuring Model Quality” Mon, 11-12.45
Populism and Civic Engagement Conference - online and in Brussels, 15, 17, 18 Nov 2021 4 November 2021
You are invited to attend this conference, which includes an online session on simulating politics. There is a face-face set of roundtables on the 15th Nov, but you can also attend these online. For details see https://pace-conference.b2match.io/
Two round table discussions at Social Simulation 2021 on: "Integrating Evidence Using Agent-Based Modelling" and "on increasing rigour of ABM" 11 September 2021
Tuesday 21-09-2021 17:30 CEST, Integrating Evidence Using Agent-Based Modelling. Thursday 23-09-2021 19:15 CEST, Increasing Rigour of ABM. Registration is free but necessary to attend. https://ssc2021.uek.krakow.pl/
Social Simulation FesT (SocSimFesT2021), online 15-20 March 2021 6 November 2020
Videos from the webinar on ABM and Policy 13 October 2020
Video recordings from this webinar, organised by the UK Government’s Digital Catapult are now available. Some interesting discussion about the potential for ABM to inform policy, as well as some questions and discussion on some of the difficulties.
New paper: A Semantic and Syntactic Similarity Measure for Political Tweets 21 August 2020
Foundational work by Claire Little, D. McLean, K. Crockett and B. Edmonds as part of the EU’s H2020 programme to help automatically identify populist tweets ( as part of the PaCE project )
A draft programme for Social Simulation Week (14-18 Sept) is announced 9 July 2020
This is full of interesting online workshops and talks! For details see http://ssc2020.behavelab.org/programme
Online discussion and virtual meeting on Othering & Polarisation 11 May 2020
There will be an online workshop (3-6pm CET on 9,10 &11 June, registration necessary but free) and other events and channels for discussion on this topic. See the announcement on the O&P website for details.
New Position Paper: Computational Models That Matter During a Global Pandemic Outbreak: A Call to Action 2 April 2020
OR Society Simulation SIG workshop on: "Don't Ignore the Qualitative, Stupid! Why Qualitative Data Matters in Simulations", 27th May 2020, Southampton 4 March 2020
Workshop@iEMS2020 on "New Tools or New Research Culture? Towards an Integration First approach to modelling social-environmental systems" 17 February 2020
CfA - BIGSSS Computational Social Science Summer School on Social Cohesion, July 6-17, 2020 16 January 2020
CfA - BIGSSS Computational Social Science Summer School on Social Cohesion, July 6-17, 2020 16 January 2020
3rd Workshop Integrating Qualitative and Quantitative Evidence using Social Simulation, 28-29 May 2020, Southampton, UK 13 January 2020
Special issue on "Agent-based modelling to study resilience in socio-ecological systems" is out 18 November 2019
In Ecological Complexity, December 2019. Edited by George van Voorn, Gert Jan Hofstede, Bruce Edmonds and Gary Polhill
Predicting Complex Social Systems - a Challenge! 5 November 2019
Following lively discussion at Social Simulation 2019, Gary Polhill, David Hales and I are issuing a challenge to those who think there are such examples to send us the documentation about these predictions.
CfP: Second Workshop on Integrating Qualitative and Quantitative Evidence Using Social Simulation 25 September 2019
Center for Policy Modelling, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
November 21st and 22nd 2019
Definitive version of: "Different Modelling Purposes" paper published in JASSS 28 June 2019
Edmonds, B., Le Page, C., Bithell, M., Chattoe-Brown, E., Grimm, V., Meyer, R., Montañola-Sales, C., Ormerod, P., Root, H. and Squazzoni, F. (2019) Different Modelling Purposes. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 22(3):6 <http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/22/3/6.html. DOI: 10.18564/jasss.3993
Newly Published: "Mapping the global network of fisheries science collaboration" 15 June 2019
By two CfPM students: Shaheen and Lia.
Syed, S., ní Aodha, L., Scougal, C. & Spruit, M. (online first,. 2019) Mapping the global network of fisheries science collaboration. Fish & Fisheries. https://doi.org/10.1111/faf.12379
Paper published: Co-developing beliefs and social influence networks - towards understanding socio-cognitive processes like Brexit 13 June 2019
Workshop on Cognitive Modules for NetLogo, 23 Sept @ SocSim 2019, Mainz 16 April 2019
Outcomes from the Workshop on "Integrating Qualitative and Quantitative Evidence using Social Simulation"... 14 April 2019
Special issue of SSCR on "Simulation Models of Ethnocentrism and Diversity" is now officially published 1 April 2019
All the papers in this special issue are now available in the August 2020 issue of Social Science Computer Review. The whole issue can be found at https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/ssce/38/4
Workshop on "Integrating Qualitative and Quantitative Evidence using Social Simulation" 21 March 2019
A Lorentz workshop, 8th-12th April 2019, Leiden, NL.
Co-organised by :
- Melania Borit (Tromsø, Norway)
- Stephanie Dornschneider (Dublin, Ireland)
- Bruce Edmonds (Manchester, UK)
- Magnús Josefsson (Reykjavik, Iceland)
- Sara Mehryar (London, United Kingdom)
- Nanda Wijermans
Papers that came out of the workshop on "Cross-scale Resilience In Socio-Ecological Simulations" 22 January 2019
New Project on Opinion Dynamics 4 January 2019
“Towards realistic computational models of social influence dynamics” (ToRealSim) is a four-country (DE, NL, FR, UK) joint project under the Open Research Area initiative. We lead the UK part of this and will work with the University of Leicester, starting April 2019 for 3 years.
Social Simulation 2019 in Mainz, Germany 23-27th Sept 12 December 2018
The Social Simulation Conference 2019 will take place from 23 – 27 September 2019 at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany.
New Project on Populism 28 November 2018
Lorentz Workshop on "Integrating Qualitative and Quantitative Evidence Using Social Simulation" 30 October 2018
8 Apr 2019 through 12 Apr 2019, Lorentz Centre, Leiden, NL. For more about this see http://cfpm.org/qual2rule/eoi-lorentz-workshop/ and http://lorentzcenter.nl/lc/web/2019/1116/info.php3?wsid=1116&venue=Snellius
Paul Ormerod lecture "Algorithmic economics: new approaches to macroeconomics" 24 October 2018
Paul Ormerod will talk at the MMU Business School @1pm on Thurs 8th November 2018, room BS 3.21. All welcome.
Paul Ormerod is a dissident economist, most famous for his first book “The Death of Economics” which critiqued the discipline in 1994. Apart from his many academic papers, he was one of the founders of the Henley Centre for Forecasting, and author of three more books: “Butterfly Economics”, “Why most things fail” and “-Positive Linking: How Networks and Incentives Can Revolutionise the World_”.
More about his activities can be found at http://paulormerod.com or the consultancy he co-founded with others: Volterra Partners which do a lot of work for the government and business sectors.
New paper: "Agent-based modelling of socio-ecological systems: Models, projects and ontologies" 3 September 2018
In Ecological Complexity (online first). This is an overview of the need for simulating Socio-Ecological systems in a truly integrated manner and discusses some of the methodological issues that arise from doing so. Includes discussion on the necessity of multiple models at times and the possible role of ontologies in helping to deal with model complexity. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecocom.2018.07.007
Just published in journal of conflict resolution: "Intragenerational Cultural Evolution and Ethnocentrism " 25 June 2018
A #cfpm_org paper that goes in a ‘perpendicular’ direction to that of (Axelrod & Hammond 2006). By David Hales and Bruce Edmonds . This open access publication is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022002718780481
Paper in RS Open Science: "Computational modelling for decision-making: where, why, what, who and how" 20 June 2018
#cfpm_org #bruceedmonds A paper has just been published in the Royal Society’s journal: Open Science, called Computational modelling for decision-making: where, why, what, who and how (Open Access). It is a summary of the UK Government Blackett report on Computational Modelling: Technological Futures.
New Journal: Socio-Cognitive Systems 9 June 2018
A new journal that looks at simulations and systems that integrate social and cognitive aspects into a single framework. We (Frank Dignum and I) hope to focus and stimulate research which does not just look at one side (cognitive or social) with only a nod to the other. Much of human cognition is fundamentally social and makes no sense away from its social context. Much social phenomena can only occur (and thus be understood) when there is sufficient cognitive hooks (e.g. context-sensitivity or face recognition). Thus we hope to focus and stimulate research which does not just look at one side (cognitive or social) with only a nod to the other, but integrates the two aspects and understands them together.
Springer Home page is at: https://www.springer.com/computer/ai/journal/42419 #cfpm_org #scs #bruceedmonds
CfP: Workshop on "Socio-Cognitive Systems: Computational and Formal models" 19 March 2018
Call for papers for a workshop on “Socio-Cognitive Systems: Computational and Formal models”, to be held as part of FAIM2018 (Federated AI Meeting which includes AAMAS, ICML, ICCBR and SoCS). To happen at Stockholmsmässan, Stockholm July 9-19. 2018.
Details at: http://cfpm.org/scs18/
Social Simulation in Stockholm, 20-24th August 7 February 2018
The biggest and best conference on social simulation in the world, this year in Stockholm. Early Bird Registration: before 1st August. For more details see: http://ssc2018.dsv.su.se
Social Simulation 2018, 20-24th August, Stockholm 21 December 2017
Second edition of the SSC Handbook now available 19 December 2017
Slides and abstracts from workshop on Computational Models of Ethnocentrism and Diversity 27 June 2017
Call for participation and Program for the workshop on: computational models of ethnocentrism and diversity, 7/8 June Manchester 12 May 2017
Slides and posters from the Workshop on: Cross-Scale Resilience in Socio-Ecological Simulations 5 May 2017
Workshop@SSC2017: Using qualitative data to inform behavioral rules in modelling 24 April 2017
Monday the 25th of September 2017. Duration: 90 minutes, @ Social Simulation Conference 2017, Dublin, Ireland. ESSA SIG Using qualitative data to inform behavioural rules.
A special issue of Scientometrics on "Simulating the processes of science, technology, and innovation" 2 February 2017
The special issue edited by Katy Börner, Bruce Edmonds, Staša Milojević & Andrea Scharnhorst of Scientometrics on “Simulating the processes of science, technology, and innovation” is now out. It is in Volume 110, Issue 1, January 2017 at: http://link.springer.com/journal/11192/110/1?wt_mc=
Some Results of the SCID project: Staging Abstraction of Complex Simulations 30 September 2016
Three papers that summarise the approach developed in the SCID project: staged abstraction from complex descriptive simulation (with relevance) to simpler models (with rigour).
Social Simulation 2017 will be at UCD, Dublin 23 September 2016
Slides from the workshop on the "Simulation of fisheries and coastal fisheries" 9 June 2016
This workshop happened on the 6/7th June 2016, Manchester Metropolitan University. The slides from most of the talks are now available.
CfP for a workshop on "Social simulation of fisheries and coastal management" 12 February 2016
A 2-day workshop on Social simulation of fisheries and coastal management held in Manchester, 6/7 June 2016.
Workshop on “Taking stock of peer review” and "Simulating the Social Processes of Science II" 11 February 2016
PEERE Meeting on “Taking stock of peer review” & 2nd Workshop on Simulating the Social Processes of Science (SSPOS II), 8th – 11th March 2016, Valencia, Spain.
2 ABM PhD scholarships at the Centre for Policy Modelling 5 February 2016
2 PhD Scholarships available now on Integrating Data Mining and Agent-based simulation and Modelling the Dynamics of Town Centre Change. Deadline 9am (GMT) on the 21 March 2016.
Free 2-Day Introduction to Agent-Based Modelling, 3&4 Nov, Manchester 30 September 2015
Special section of JASSS published on "Using Qualitative Evidence to Inform the Specification of Agent-Based Models"! 2 February 2015
Workshop on "Modelling Routines", Manchester 25th November 25 November 2014
CfP special issue of Scientometrics on: "Simulating the Social Processes of Science" 15 October 2014
New edited book: the Complexity of Social Norms 15 October 2014
New "Introduction to ABM" course 8 July 2014
Qualitative Evidence to inform Agent Rules: special issue and conference session 15 October 2013
Handbook: Simulating Social Complexity 22 August 2013
A handbook on Simulating Social Complexity
edited by Bruce Edmonds and Ruth Meyer
in memory of Herbert Simon