This workshop will introduce participants to the modelling of dynamic social processes, such as group membership, influence, imitation collaboration and innovation, through a series of agent-based simulations.

Participants will gain understanding of the simulation of social processes by exploring working simulation models and by adapting these models to describe different types of process.  It will give participants a first-hand experience of complexity science including the ideas of emergence, self-organisation, chaos, ‘lock in’ and dynamic systems.  We will also consider the limitations and difficulties of such techniques, and how they complement more traditional approaches in the social sciences.

This will be a largely hands-on course, exposing participants to a series of simulation models in the NetLogo simulation language.  It will include:  brief introductions, simplified example models, guided suggestions for interacting with them and assistants to help when you get stuck.  There will be some summary sessions to bring out the lessons learnt and additional materials to guide participants onto the next steps of simulation for those that are interested.