New article of the unit published in the edited volume The Routledge Companion to Innovation Management: "Ahrweiler, P. (2019): Innovation Management Simulations using Agent-Based Modelling, in: Chen, J., Brem, A., Viardot, E., Wong, P. K.:The Routledge Companion to Innovation Management: S. 539-559."
Our new research project AI FORA is funded by the VW Foundation in the course of a 9-month planning grant which serves as a first step towards a multi-annual project. Our unit coordinates an interdisciplinary and international consortium which will investigate highly topical questions within the context of an ongoing rise of artificial intelligence: What are the effects of an increase in AI systems that assess human behaviour and how does society react towards this development? What are the social, political, legal and ethical implications of these modern computer programmes that more and more penetrate social structures?
As part of the "Innovation Networks" seminar, which was led by Prof. Dr. Petra Ahrweiler, a group of sociology students successfully participated in the "Frontier of Food" Challenge, finishing in 4th place. The interdisciplinary challenge was organized by Merck KGaA and Ekipa. The topic was "the future of food", which was handled very differently by the student teams.
The JGU team has worked on the subject of Clean Meat, developing a concept of how Merck could establish Clean Meat products on the market and simultaneously become a central actor for innovation in this area. For the first place it was not enough, nonetheless the team could be happy about winning 1000 euro prize money. The first place was taken by a team from the University Wageningen (Netherlands), which has developed a process for the fermentation of fruits.
Minister Bätzing-Lichtenthäler, federal state Rhineland-Palatinate, visits JGU to hear about demographic contents in the Programme of the upcoming Social Simulation Conference 2019.
Link to the press release by the Ministry of Social Affairs, Labor, Health and Demography; Rhineland-Palatinate: https://msagd.rlp.de/de/service/presse/detail/news/detail/News/baetzing-lichtenthaeler-tauscht-sich-mit-mitgliedern-des-wissenschaftlichen-beirates-demografie-aus-1/
New contribution of the unit in the third issue of the Science Policy Papers organized by the Mercator Foundation published: Frank, D. and Ahrweiler, P.: The Future of Artificial Intelligence: Policy Research Perspectives (2018). The contribution in the volume Whither Artificial Intelligence? Debating the Policy Challenges of the Upcoming Transformation deals with the impact of AI on policy research in the near future.
SSC 2019 seeks submissions for the following:
For further information please visit the conference webpage: Call for Submissions
Interested parties can vote for new conference formats that could be implemented in next year´s Social Simulation Conference. We have prepared a PollUnit survey for the voting, which will be accessible by 26 November 2018. You are able to vote for the formats we have already proposed in the list and/or add another innovative conference format you would like to see at SSC 2019.
For further information, click on the link to the voting or visit our conference webpage.
New article of our unit published by the Journal of Responsible Innovation: "Ahrweiler, P., Gilbert, N., Schrempf, B., Grimpe, B. und M. Jirotka (2018): The Role of Civil Society Organisations in European Responsible Research and Innovation. Journal of Responsible Innovation Vol. 6 / Issue 1: 25-49."
Our unit will be present in considerable numbers at the upcoming Social Simulation Conference, the annual conference of ESSA. Together with Bruce Edmonds, Nigel Gilbert and Ruth Meyer, Petra Ahrweiler organized two sessions on the issue of “Social Simulation in the Policy World”. Furthermore, she will announce next year´s SSC, which will take place at the University of Mainz. Martin Neumann will give a speech entitled “Exploring the horizon of a cultural space”, which will be a part of the session “Using qualitative data to inform behavioral rules in agent-based models”. Our student assistants Marc Möller-Boldt and Dario Brockschmidt will visit the conference as members of the 2019 organization team and will take a look behind the scenes of this year´s organization.
Following a successful bidding by Nigel Gilbert, Alex Penn and Petra Ahrweiler, the ESRC has granted funding for a new, CECAN-related research project entitled 'New approaches to Participatory Steering and Evaluation of Complex Adaptive Systems'. The upcoming funding will serve the development of an international network. The main activity will be to organize a highly interactive workshop for international participants that will take place nearby the University of Surrey in February 2019.
