New Research Project: "AI FORA"

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?

Team of the JGU wins the 4th place of the "Frontier of Food" challenge

Team Innovation Networks (left to right: Nils Eggert, Rebekka Panitz, Viktoriia Voloshan, Jan Gruca and Johanna Kayser) © Ekipa

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 informs herself about the Social Simulations Conference 2019

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 Publication of the Unit

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.

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SSC 2019: Call for Submissions Published

SSC 2019 seeks submissions for the following:

  1. Abstracts (300 – 500 words)
  2. Extended Abstracts (3-4 pages; short oral presentations)
  3. Full Papers (max. 12 pages; long oral presentations)
  4. Poster abstracts (300 to 500 words)
  5. Special Tracks
  6. Workshops
  7. Round Tables

For further information please visit the conference webpage: Call for Submissions

Voting for New Formats for SSC 2019 begins

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 Publication of the Unit

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."

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Social Simulation Conference 2018 in Stockholm (20th August – 24th August)

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.

New Project Funded

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.

International Open Innovation conference in Naples on the 27th of June 2018

Michel Schilperoord will present at the International Open Innovation conference (www.openinnovationtmc.org/) in Naples on the 27th of June 2018. He will provide input on development of a second pilot study for simulating and learning about the emergence of start-ups. In the first pilot study, set in the context of Irish High-Potential Start-ups Programme and published in 2016, a suite of simulation experiments was developed for testing predictors and policy with respect to high-potential start-ups. The outcomes of these experiments not only provided proof of concept for the predictors, but also confirmed the rationale for the HPSU Programme. The second pilot study will re-examine the outcomes of these experiments in the context of China’s move to mass entrepreneurship, with focus on the evolution of Shanghai’s start-up ecosystem.