Social Simulation at The James Hutton Institute
Introduction
Social simulation is an interdisciplinary domain involving collaborations of computer and social and/or ecological scientists. Also known as agent-based social simulation, multi-agent simulation and agent-based modelling, social simulation is computer simulation involving the explicit representation of individuals and the influences they have on each other.
The James Hutton Institute's Information and Computational Sciences and Social, Economic and Geographical Sciences departments have a long history of collaborating on social simulation work, especially in projects funded by the European Commission, though most of our work has been funded through the Scottish Government's Strategic Research Programme. We are an 'institutional member' of the European Social Simulation Association, and many of our people have been active in that community and its events.
Our research efforts are currently focused on developing the tools and methods needed to mainstream empirical applications of agent-based modelling. You can read more about our strategy for doing so and the research themes we think need to be addressed in an open-access journal article in Geoinformatica.
Separate pages summarize selected projects, provide links to software we've produced, and a bibliography of our contributions to the social simulation and agent-based modelling literature.
People
People doing or associated with agent-based modelling work who are current members of staff at The James Hutton Institute are listed below. Those for whom agent-based modelling is their main specialism are indicated with an asterisk (*).
- Lisa Avery
- Marie Castellazzi
- Kathryn Colley
- Tony Craig
- Natalie Davis
- Alessandro Gimona
- Matt Hare*
- Rupert Hough
- Keith Matthews
- Dave Miller
- Aaron Neill
- Maria Nijnik
- Gary Polhill*
- Doug Salt*
- Andrea Scalco*
- Lee-Ann Sutherland
- Ruth Wilson
- Jagadeesh Yeluripati