Events Archive
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Evolutionary economics: understanding transitions and institutional design in complex social-ecological systems
June 16th and 17th 2009 at the CSIRO Gungahlin site in Canberra, ACT
Evolutionary economics is a school of economic thought that explores the processes that transform economic systems. It acknowledges the diversity of agents with bounded rationality, the importance of innovation and the selection environment, and the existence of irreversibilities, positive network externalities, and positive and negative feedbacks between components of systems.
Aim of the workshop: to spend some concentrated time learning about this field of economics and how we can usefully apply it to better understanding transitions and institutional design in complex social-ecological systems. A master class will be given by Dr. Jason Potts (biography below) on the 16th and a half-day CSE discussion on how evolutionary economics can be usefully applied will be on the morning of the 17th.
Dr. Jason Potts - biography Dr. Potts is an evolutionary economist with the School of Economics at the University of Queensland and the ARC Centre for Creative Industries and Innovation at Queensland University of Technology. His first book 'The New Evolutionary Microeconomics: Complexity, Competence and Adaptive Behaviour' (Edward Elgar) received the Schumpeter Prize in 2000. His latest book, 'The General Theory of Economic Evolution', was written with Kurt Dopfer and published by Routledge in 2008. Through these and other publications, Potts has developed the analytic basis for the use of complex systems theory and population dynamics in modelling evolutionary economic processes. He is also working on bringing together behavioural and innovation economics to explore choice under novelty.
Details: Spaces are limited, please respond with your definite interest and ability to attend as soon as possible to Dr Anna Straton at CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems Ph: +61 (0)3 9252 6403 Fax: +61 (0)3 9252 6249
Incorporating the Social Dimension into the Assessment of Water Services
20th and 21st May 2009 at the CSIRO Parkville site in Melbourne, Victoria
This facilitated workshop will explore the nexus of social science, urban water engineering and complexity science. The intent is to initiate an informal working group to identify key variables and modelling methodologies for incorporating the social dimension into systems analysis of urban water systems developments
Aim of the workshop: improve the systems analysis tools used to assess urban water systems developments (in particular decentralized systems) in Greenfield developments. Key stakeholders for the application of such a framework are property developers, local councils, state government, water authorities and the affected communities.
The expected output from the working group would be two-fold: 1) identifying key topic domains / variables that need to be incorporated when evaluating the social dimension of urban water systems; and 2) deciding on whether Bayesian Belief Networks, or Systems Dynamics modelling is more suitable for exploring systems analysis scenarios.
The working group will consist of individuals representing the urban water engineering area (i.e. Ashok Sharma or Stewart Burn), the social dimension of urban water systems (i.e. Geoff Syme, Rebekah Brown or Anna Hurlimann), as well as the Complex systems modelling area (i.e. Magnus Moglia, Barry Newell, Pascal Perez).
Details: For more information contact Magnus Moglia CSIRO Land and Water Division at Highett, Victoria, phone (03) 9252 6025
10th International Workshop on Multi-Agent-Based Simulation
Budapest, Hungary May 10th-15th 2009
Multi-Agent Based Simulation (MABS) is an inter-disciplinary area born at the intersection between the multi-agent systems (MAS) community and the agent-based social simulation (ABSS) community. The workshop aims to bring together scholars interested in agent-based systems and computational models of real-world societies, at different levels of organization, in order to create a forum for dialogue and research across disciplines. This is part of the Eighth International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems and two previous participants in the Complex Dynamics of Complex Systems project are to present at this occasion.
Human Systems Dynamics Workshop
Brisbane 20th to 22nd April 2009
Current levels of population and use of natural resources are without precedent yet many political and economic decisions are still made in ignorance of the tight coupling between the economy, society and the biophysical world. Policies framed with the best of intentions often have dire unintended consequences. If we are to have sensible policy responses to climate change, resource constraints and other pressures we need to understand at a much deeper level than we do now, the social dynamics of the planet and a first step is to link our conceptual and quantitative models of the biophysical world, the economy and the dynamics of society.
Aim of the workshop: The workshop offers the opportunity to present new research and review models and methods for understanding human social dynamics and will showcase research around: agents and drivers of change, dynamics of human behaviour, decision making and risk and modelling human and social dynamics.
Details: The workshop will be held at Wickham Terrace, Brisbane, Queensland and for more information please contact David Newth on (02) 6246 5638 at CSIRO, Marine and Atmospheric Research Division, Black Mountain - Canberra ACT.
Food Transport and Urban Living
Sydney, 1st December 2008
The ultimate resource: sorting out local food for a sustainable future CSIRO suported this free public lecture by Prof. John Whitelegg (Lancaster University) and panel discussion on food, transport and urban living on Monday December 1st, 2008 in the Old Geology Lecture Theatre at the University of Sydney.
The Topic: Currently we eat oil. We use it to grow food, move food around the world, process food and go to the supermarket to buy food. In an oil constrained world struggling with climate change and seeking to switch land to feed cars and not people this is not very intelligent. The presentation and discussion explored the issues and ways to build a practical sustainable alternative based on international experience in celebrating and facilitating high quality local food.
Following the presentation we had a panel discussion with David Mason from the NSW Department of Primary Industries, Wayne Mitchell and Monique Desmarcheliers from Penrith City Council and Prof. Whitelegg to discuss the tradeoffs around land use for housing and for food production in the context of urbanising populations, long-term oil shortages and other factors such as climate change.
About the presenter: Professor John Whitelegg has worked in academia and at the Ministry of Urban Development, Housing and Traffic in Dusseldorf, Germany, and as a visiting Professor of Transport at Roskilde University in Denmark. John is Founding Editor of the journal World Transport Policy and Practice and has acted as a consultant to governmental bodies in Australia and governments and community groups in Israel, India, Sweden, Denmark, Romania, Slovenia and Poland. He also works with community groups in Kolkata (Calcutta) on air pollution and transport and has advised the State government of West Bengal. In 1993 he up his own company, Eco-Logica Ltd, a Lancaster-based consultancy specialising in sustainable transport, environmental audit and review, life cycle analysis and corporate environmental strategies.
Read more about the Farm Gate Trail around Sydney or the up coming Summit organised through the Sydney Food Fairness Alliance
Mind Games At Kioloa 2008
Kiola (South Coast of NSW), 11-14th November 2008
COSNet organised a Complex Systems Early Career Researcher workshop entitled "Mind Games at Kioloa". Post-grads, post-docs and other enthusiastic ECR types were encouraged to get involved, add their expertise to the mix, and then take away some new contacts, new ideas and maybe new collaborations.
The emphasis was partly on seminars presented by keynote speakers, and partly research group work. The theme of the workshop was "real world problems, complex system solutions" and a wiki site was established with a couple of working groups getting the ball rolling early on some topics: exchanging ideas and background material. See here: Mind Games @ Kioloa 2008 - Working Groups
The idea was to provide a time and a place where early career researchers who are interested in or actively use complex systems, could come together find out about each others' work and maybe solve one or two of the World's problems. Among the problems proposed for work at Kioloa are: Ocean acidification, The drug problem, Transgenic humanoids, The new energy system, Beyond emissions reductions, Global terrorism, and 'The internet of the world'. Visit the Mind Games @ Kioloa 2008 - Problem Set to have a closer look and check out the Kioloa08-Megacities working group page. Suggestions and new ideas for working problems are welcome and the wiki is a great tool to exchange these ideas.
Workshop 3 – Making the Connections: Systems Thinking and Urban Dynamics
Canberra, May 13th and 14th, 2008
The toolkit of CSS includes agent based models, game theory, neural networks, evolutionary algorithms and techniques to analyse the behaviour of social and physical networks. Systems thinking is integral to conceptualising complex issues where interactions are important and the isolated study of individual components does not reveal insight.
In this workshop we wanted to encourage systems thinking to identify and understand the complex interactions between urban systems such as transport, housing infrastructure, water and energy supply, governance and planning. In Workshop 1, participants discussed major urban issues that could be addressed with complex systems science. Now we want to literally and metaphorically join these identified "dot point" issues and chart the connections and feedbacks between the urban systems and:
- Develop a common mental model of interconnected urban systems and to map out the connections and feedbacks that affect urban function and development.
- Develop understanding about systems thinking and complex dynamics in the urban context.
- Identify opportunities for application of this systems thinking and other complex systems approaches and develop project ideas realising the connections.
Please also have a look at Three Questions & Some Idiosyncratic Answers, Barry Newell's Discussion paper for this workshop
Workshop 2: Simulation and Modelling of Sustainability Transitions & Applications in Policy Planning and Management
A Science Meeting of CSIRO's Sustainable Ecosystems Division
Melbourne 4th - 6th December 2007
Urban and regional transition is a human-driven process, unless we clearly understand the degree and magnitude of transitions’ social significance, we cannot achieve levels of policy and management responses that would enhance the social, economic, institutional and cognitive capacity of societies to respond and adapt to the transitions. Simulation and modelling may provide an alternative pathway to the answers.
SMURT provided an opportunity for complex systems science researchers to engage with people immediately involved in decision making and advocacy surrounding urban systems. The continuity between this and Workshop 1 in Sydney gives a very real sense that there’s a ‘community of practice’ out there concerned about complex systems approaches to problems of urban function and development.
Workshop 1 – Complex Systems Science in the Urban Context
Sydney 3rd and 4th of October 2007
CSIRO hosted the first in a series of workshops funded through a cross-divisional project emphasising the potential for applying CSS in the urban context. The objective was to bring together researchers working at the interface of urban planning and management and those with expertise in the application of complex systems science approaches to interact and share knowledge.
- Researchers in urban studies, planning and sustainability
- Modellers of cities and urban systems
- Researchers in complex systems science, particularly those with experience or an interest in applying it in the urban context.
The environment of the workshop was sufficiently informal that participants felt like they could ask both the ‘big questions’ and the ‘dumb questions’ about each others’ area of research. This interaction has proved to be a fertile way of generating a broad understanding of the potential for applying complex systems science in the urban context. Discussions from Workshop 3rd and 4th October, 2007 can be found here.
There has been at least one previous (but unrelated) workshop on the same topic, held in Switzerland in 2004: The Dynamics of Complex Urban Systems: an interdisciplinary approach.
Also have a look at...
The NSW Food Summit
Thursday 22 October and Friday 23 October 2009 Teachers’ Federation, Federation Conference Centre 37 Reservoir Street, Surry Hills, Sydney
Hungry for change? The NSW Food Summit starts the framing of state-wide food policies that are fair and sustainable. The summit will address affordable access to healthy food, sustainable food systems and farming, food safety and health.
Join people and their organisations in taking the lead in planning the food future. This event has been organised by the Sydney Fair Food Alliance which has been supported previously by CSIRO's Climate Adaptation Flagship in the form of the Food Transport and Urban Living evening - see the Events Archive
Public Talk: The Permanence of Temporary Things (and Vice Versa)
Posted on ABC Fora's website October 6th 2009
This was a presentation given in Sydney earlier this year as part of the Interesting South series of conferences. In the video Tim Baynes talks about entropy, adapting to your environment and the transient nature of things we perceive as permanent: from your body to cities.
International Workshop on Coping with Crises in Complex Socio-Economic Systems
Organised by ETH Zurich, Switzerland, June 8-13, 2009
Social systems typically feature crises, i.e. unstable and dangerous situations that are characterized by abrupt and large-scale changes. Such disruptions are very hard to predict with any precision and even harder to control. Indeed, crises often convey an impression that key decision makers have lost control and that events unfold in an unstoppable and even catastrophic way. Examples include environmental crises, the collapse of transportation systems, as well as financial and social crises such as poverty, social conflicts or wars. These and other issues will be addressed during the meeting, which combines elements of an interdisciplinary workshop with a think tank and a summer school for young scientists.
