Nigel Gilbert

Last updated

Nigel Gilbert
Nigel Gilbert at the 1st World Congress on Social Simulation, Kyoto, Japan, August 2006.jpg
Born
Geoffrey Nigel Gilbert

(1950-03-21) 21 March 1950 (age 74)
Birmingham, United Kingdom
NationalityBritish
Alma mater University of Cambridge
Known for Agent-based models for the social sciences, Social simulation
Awards CBE ScD(Cantab), FBCS, FRSA, FAcSS, FREng
Scientific career
Fields Computational sociology, Complexity theory, Sociology of science, Evaluation of public policy
Institutions University of Surrey
Thesis The development of science and scientific knowledge (1976)
Doctoral advisor Michael Mulkay

Geoffrey Nigel Gilbert CBE FBCS FRSA FAcSS FREng (born 21 March 1950) is a British sociologist and a pioneer in the use of agent-based models in the social sciences. [1] [2] He is the founder and director of the Centre for Research in Social Simulation (University of Surrey), author of several books on computational social science, social simulation and social research and past editor of the Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation (JASSS), the leading journal in the field.

Contents

Career

A Cambridge engineering graduate (Emmanuel College), he turned to the sociology of scientific knowledge for his PhD under the direction of Michael Mulkay. He was a lecturer at the University of York (1974–76) and then joined the University of Surrey where he became a professor in the Department of Sociology in 1991. [3] At the University of Surrey he founded the Social and Computer Sciences research group in 1984 with a grant from the Alvey Programme. The group focused on applying social science to the design of intelligent knowledge-based systems. Later he established the Centre for Research in Social Simulation (1997), [4] and the Digital World Research Centre (1998). [5] He served as a Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Surrey (1998–2005) [6] and he is the current Director of its Institute of Advanced Studies. [7] He served as a member of the Council of the Economic and Social Research Council. [8] from 2017 to 2020.

Work

Sociology of scientific knowledge

Gilbert and Mulkay (1984) is a key contribution on the use of discourse analysis methods in the sociology of scientific knowledge. [9] [10] By applying discourse analysis to extensive qualitative data on a scientific dispute in the field of chemistry, Gilbert and Mulkay account for the social processes that underpin knowledge production, especially when consensus has not yet been established within the scientific community.

Secondary analysis of large government datasets

With Sara Arber, he was a pioneer in the use for academic analysis of computer files of survey data collected by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, a data source that has now become commonplace in sociology. [11]

Access to social security information

The regulations determining what claimants of UK welfare benefits are entitled to (e.g. income support, tax credits, Disability Living Allowance) are complicated and often very difficult for claimants to apprehend unaided. With the growing availability of personal computers in the 1980s, he realised that an interactive program, designed for claimants themselves to use, could be helpful. [12] He developed a prototype, which was taken up by both the then Department of Health and Social Security and Citizens Advice Bureaux, and which was the forerunner of the systems nowadays routinely used in advice centres. This work also contributed to understanding the interface requirements for publicly accessible computer systems, using graphical interfaces and, later, speech dialogue interfaces . [13]

Social simulation

Nigel Gilbert is one of the founders of modern computational sociology, a discipline that merges social science research with simulation techniques with the goal of modelling complex policy issues and fundamental aspects of human societies. His first work in this area was a project on modelling the emergence of organised society in prehistoric France, with Jim Doran . [14] While this was only moderately successful, it led him to organise in 1992 the first of an influential series of workshops on 'Simulating Societies’ [15] [16] Later he established:

In 1997, CRESS received funding from the FAIR programme of the European Commission for a project called IMAGES: Improving agri-environmental policies–a simulation approach to the role of the cognitive properties of farmers and institutions (1997–2000). [19] This was the first of many Commission funded projects using social simulation to which he contributed , [20] such as SEIN , [21] FIRMA , [22] SIMWEB , [23] EMIL , [24] NEMO , [25] NEWTIES , [26] PATRES , [27] QLectives , [28] ePolicy , [29] TellMe , [30] GLODERS [31] and P2Pvalue . [32]

In 1999, Nigel Gilbert and Klaus G. Troitzsch published Simulation for the social scientist, [33] the first "how to" text book on social simulation and, in 2008, Agent-based Models, [34] now one of the standard references on agent-based modelling.

Policy evaluation

In 2016, he became the Director of a newly established Centre for the Evaluation of Complexity Across the Nexus (CECAN). [35] The Centre, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and the Natural Environment Research Council with the support of DECC, DEFRA, the Environment Agency and the Food Standards Agency, pioneers, tests and promotes innovative evaluation approaches and methods across nexus problem domains, such as biofuel production or climate change, where food, energy, water and environmental issues intersect. The Centre authored Handling Complexity in Policy Evaluation, [36] a Supplementary Guide to the 2020 edition of HM Treasury's Magenta Book, [37] its handbook on policy evaluation. He founded a spin-out company, CECAN Ltd. in 2019 to provide consultancy services to decision makers on innovative policy evaluation approaches.

Other research and advisory activity

In 1993, Gilbert founded the journal Sociological Research Online. [38] This pioneered the use of the web as a medium for academic publication. [39] He is founding editor of Social Research Update, a quarterly publication of the University of Surrey. [40] He and Stuart Peters created a journal management system, epress, originally to make running Sociological Research Online and JASSS easier, but now available commercially.

Beside his research activity, he has served on a number of government and national committees: as the Deputy Chairman of the Manufacturing, Production and Business Processes Foresight Panel (1994–99), Deputy Chairman of the Economic and Social Research Council's Research Priorities Board (1997–2000) and on the Advisory Group of the Foresight Intelligent Infrastructures Project, [41] as well as on many research council boards, both in the UK and abroad. As Chairman of the Royal Academy of Engineering's Group on Privacy and Surveillance, he published Dilemmas of Privacy and Surveillance: Challenges of Technological Change (2007). [42] [43] He was a member of the Sociology sub-panel for the 2001 and 2008 Research Assessment Exercises (RAE).

From 2012 to 2016, he was a member of the Social Science Expert Panel for DEFRA and DECC. [44] The panel's purpose was to bring high quality, multi-disciplinary social science advice to both departments. In 2016, it was replaced by the Social Science Expert Group (SSEG), a sub-group of the DEFRA Science Advisory Council, on which he served until 2023.

He was a member of the European Commission's Advisory Group for the Future and Emerging Technologies programme [45] from 2013 to 2018.

Awards and scientific recognitions

In 1999, he was appointed Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in recognition of his work as "a pioneer of the application of computer modelling to social science", becoming the first practising social scientist to become a Fellow. [46] He was awarded a Doctor of Science degree by the University of Cambridge in 2003. He is also a Fellow of the British Computer Society and of the Royal Society of Arts and a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences (for which he served as a Council Member). From 2004 to 2006, he was President of the European Social Simulation Association (ESSA). [47]

Gilbert was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2016 Birthday Honours for services to engineering and the social sciences. [48]

Selected works on social simulation

Other works

See also

Related Research Articles

Social simulation is a research field that applies computational methods to study issues in the social sciences. The issues explored include problems in computational law, psychology, organizational behavior, sociology, political science, economics, anthropology, geography, engineering, archaeology and linguistics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social complexity</span> Conceptual framework

In sociology, social complexity is a conceptual framework used in the analysis of society. In the sciences, contemporary definitions of complexity are found in systems theory, wherein the phenomenon being studied has many parts and many possible arrangements of the parts; simultaneously, what is complex and what is simple are relative and change in time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Computational sociology</span> Branch of the discipline of sociology

Computational sociology is a branch of sociology that uses computationally intensive methods to analyze and model social phenomena. Using computer simulations, artificial intelligence, complex statistical methods, and analytic approaches like social network analysis, computational sociology develops and tests theories of complex social processes through bottom-up modeling of social interactions.

An agent-based model (ABM) is a computational model for simulating the actions and interactions of autonomous agents in order to understand the behavior of a system and what governs its outcomes. It combines elements of game theory, complex systems, emergence, computational sociology, multi-agent systems, and evolutionary programming. Monte Carlo methods are used to understand the stochasticity of these models. Particularly within ecology, ABMs are also called individual-based models (IBMs). A review of recent literature on individual-based models, agent-based models, and multiagent systems shows that ABMs are used in many scientific domains including biology, ecology and social science. Agent-based modeling is related to, but distinct from, the concept of multi-agent systems or multi-agent simulation in that the goal of ABM is to search for explanatory insight into the collective behavior of agents obeying simple rules, typically in natural systems, rather than in designing agents or solving specific practical or engineering problems.

An artificial society is an agent-based computational model for computer simulation in social analysis. It is mostly connected to the themes of complex systems, emergence, the Monte Carlo method, computational sociology, multi-agent systems, and evolutionary programming. While the concept was simple, actually realizing this conceptual point took a while. Complex mathematical models have been, and are, common; deceivingly simple models only have their roots in the late forties, and took the advent of the microcomputer to really get up to speed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sociology of scientific knowledge</span> Study of science as a social activity

The sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) is the study of science as a social activity, especially dealing with "the social conditions and effects of science, and with the social structures and processes of scientific activity." The sociology of scientific ignorance (SSI) is complementary to the sociology of scientific knowledge. For comparison, the sociology of knowledge studies the impact of human knowledge and the prevailing ideas on societies and relations between knowledge and the social context within which it arises.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Generative science</span> Study of how complex behaviour can be generated by deterministic and finite rules and parameters

Generative science is an area of research that explores the natural world and its complex behaviours. It explores ways "to generate apparently unanticipated and infinite behaviour based on deterministic and finite rules and parameters reproducing or resembling the behavior of natural and social phenomena". By modelling such interactions, it can suggest that properties exist in the system that had not been noticed in the real world situation. An example field of study is how unintended consequences arise in social processes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steve Woolgar</span> British sociologist

Stephen William Woolgar is a British sociologist. He has worked closely with Bruno Latour, with whom he wrote Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts (1979).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Urry (sociologist)</span> British sociologist (1946–2016)

John Richard Urry was a British sociologist who served as a professor at Lancaster University. He is noted for work in the fields of the sociology of tourism and mobility.

Agent-based social simulation consists of social simulations that are based on agent-based modeling, and implemented using artificial agent technologies. Agent-based social simulation is a scientific discipline concerned with simulation of social phenomena, using computer-based multiagent models. In these simulations, persons or group of persons are represented by agents. MABSS is a combination of social science, multiagent simulation and computer simulation.

Michael Joseph Mulkay is a retired British sociologist of science.

The Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation(JASSS) is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal created by Nigel Gilbert (University of Surrey). The current editor is Flaminio Squazzoni. The journal publishes articles in computational sociology, social simulation, complexity science, and artificial societies. Its approach is multi-disciplinary, integrating sociology, economy, computer science, or physics. The journal is published open access.

Rosaria Conte was an Italian social scientist. She was the head of the Laboratory of Agent Based Social Simulation at the ISTC-CNR in Rome, which hosts an interdisciplinary research group working at the intersection among cognitive, social and computational sciences. She was President of European Social Simulation Association and AISC. Rosaria Conte published more than 130 works among volumes, papers in scientific journals, conference proceedings and book chapters. Her scientific activity aims at explaining social behaviour among intelligent autonomous systems, and modeling the dynamics of norms and norm-enforcement mechanisms. Her research was characterized by a highly interdisciplinary approach, at the intersection among cognitive, social and computational sciences. In her name, the European Social Simulation Association assigns every other year the Outstanding Contribution Award for Social Simulation, whose first recipients are Nigel Gilbert and Uri Wilensky.

Klaus G. Troitzsch is a German sociologist. He became famous for introducing the method of computer-based simulation in the social sciences. He was professor and director of the Institute for IS Research at University of Koblenz-Landau.

Rüdiger Valk is a German mathematician. From 1976 to 2010 he was Professor for Theoretical Computer Science (Informatics) at the Institut für Informatik of the University of Hamburg, Germany.

Historical dynamics broadly includes the scientific modeling of history. This might also be termed computer modeling of history, historical simulation, or simulation of history - allowing for an extensive range of techniques in simulation and estimation. Historical dynamics does not exist as a separate science, but there are individual efforts such as long range planning, population modeling, economic forecasting, demographics, global modeling, country modeling, regional planning, urban planning and many others in the general categories of computer modeling, planning, forecasting, and simulations.

Artificial Economics can be defined as ″a research field that aims at improving our understanding of socioeconomic processes with the help of computer simulation″. Like in Theoretical Economics, the approach followed in Artificial Economics to gain understanding of socioeconomic processes involves building and analysing formal models. However, in contrast with Theoretical Economics, models in Artificial Economics are implemented in a programming language so that computers can be employed to analyse them.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quirkos</span> Software for qualitative data analysis

Quirkos is a CAQDAS software package for the qualitative analysis of text data, commonly used in social science. It provides a graphical interface in which the nodes or themes of analysis are represented by bubbles. It is designed primarily for new and non-academic users of qualitative data, to allow them to quickly learn the basics of qualitative data analysis. Although simpler to use, it lacks some of the features present in other commercial CAQDAS packages such as multimedia support. However, it has been proposed as a useful tool for lay and participant led analysis and is comparatively affordable. It is developed by Edinburgh, UK based Quirkos Software, and was first released in October 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samer Hassan</span> Spanish/Lebanese activist and researcher specialized in decentralized collaboration

Samer Hassan is a computer scientist, social scientist, activist and researcher, focused on the use of decentralized technologies to support commons-based collaboration. He is Associate Professor at Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain) and Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. He is the recipient of an ERC Grant of 1.5M€ with the P2P Models project, to research blockchain-based decentralized autonomous organizations for the collaborative economy.

James Sakoda was a Japanese-American psychologist and pioneer in computational modeling.

References

  1. Castellani, Brian (2009). "Map of Complexity Science" . Retrieved 2 December 2009 via WikiMedia Commons.
  2. Castellani, Brian; Hafferty, Frederic William (4 February 2009). Sociology and Complexity Science: A New Field of Inquiry. pp. viii. ISBN   978-3-540-88461-3.
  3. Debrett's. "Authorized Biography of Prof Nigel Gilbert, FREng". Archived from the original on 9 March 2012. Retrieved 2 December 2009.
  4. University of Surrey. "Centre for Research in Social Simulation" . Retrieved 21 May 2016.
  5. "Establishment of the Digital World Research Centre" (Press release). University of Surrey news release. 23 September 1997. Retrieved 2 December 2009.
  6. CRESS Research Group. "CRESS director". Archived from the original on 24 January 2010. Retrieved 2 December 2009.
  7. University of Surrey. "Institute of Advanced Studies" . Retrieved 2 December 2009.
  8. ESRC. "Members of the ESRC Council" . Retrieved 24 March 2017.
  9. Tibbetts, Paul; Johnson, Patricia (November 1985). "The Discourse and Praxis Models in Recent Reconstructions of Scientific Knowledge Generation". Social Studies of Science. 15 (4): 739–749. doi:10.1177/030631285015004007. S2CID   145613882.
  10. Wooffitt, Robin (2005). Conversation Analysis and Discourse Analysis: A Comparative and Critical Introduction. London: SAGE. ISBN   0-7619-7426-1.
  11. Gilbert, G. Nigel; Arber, Sara; Dale, Angela (1983). "The General Household Survey as a source for secondary analysis". Sociology. 17 (2): 255–259. doi:10.1177/0038038583017002006. S2CID   144817171.
  12. Dawson, Patrick; Buckland, Sarah; Gilbert, Nigel (1990). "Expert systems and the public provision of welfare benefit advice". Policy and Politics. 18 (1): 43–54. doi:10.1332/030557390782454602.
  13. Luff, Paul; Gilbert, Nigel; Frohlich, David (1990). Computers and conversation. Academic Press. ISBN   0-12-459560-X.
  14. Doran, Jim; Palmer, Mike; Gilbert, Nigel; Mellars, Paul (1994). "Chapter 9: The EOS Project: modelling Upper Palaeolithic social change". In Gilbert, Nigel; Doran, Jim (eds.). Simulating Societies: the computer simulation of social phenomena. UCL Press. pp. 195–223. ISBN   1-85728-082-2.
  15. Gilbert, Nigel; Doran, Jim (1994). Simulating Societies: the computer simulation of social phenomena. London: UCL Press. ISBN   1-85728-082-2.
  16. Gilbert, Nigel; Conte, Rosaria (1995). Artificial Societies: the computer simulation of social life. London: UCL Press. ISBN   1-85728-305-8.
  17. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation. "Editorial Board" . Retrieved 2 December 2009.
  18. Journal Info. "Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation info". Archived from the original on 26 July 2011. Retrieved 2 December 2009.
  19. "European Project IMAGES". 31 December 2000. Retrieved 2 December 2009.
  20. University of Surrey. "Prof Nigel Gilbert's page" . Retrieved 21 May 2016.
  21. "Simulating Self-Organising Innovation Networks (SEIN)" (PDF). Retrieved 21 May 2016.
  22. "Freshwater Integrated Resource Management with Agents" . Retrieved 21 May 2016.
  23. "SimWEB" . Retrieved 21 May 2016.
  24. "Emergence In the Loop" . Retrieved 21 May 2016.
  25. "Network Models, Governance and R&D collaboration networks (NEMO)" . Retrieved 21 May 2016.
  26. "New and Emergent World models Through Individual, Evolutionary, and Social Learning" . Retrieved 21 May 2016.
  27. "PATRES: Pattern Resilience" . Retrieved 21 May 2016.
  28. "Quality Collectives" . Retrieved 21 May 2016.
  29. "Engineering the Policy Making Lifecycle" . Retrieved 21 May 2016.
  30. "Transparent communication in Epidemics: Learning Lessons from experience, delivering effective Messages, providing Evidence" . Retrieved 21 May 2016.
  31. "Global Dynamics of Extortion Racket Systems" . Retrieved 21 May 2016.
  32. "Techno-social platform for sustainable models and value generation in commons-based peer production in the Future Internet" . Retrieved 21 May 2016.
  33. Gilbert, Nigel; Troitzsch, Klaus G. (2005) [1999]. Simulation for the social scientist. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. ISBN   0-335-21600-5.
  34. Gilbert, Nigel (2019) [2008]. Agent-based models. London: Sage Publications. ISBN   978-1-4129-4964-4.
  35. "Centre for Evaluation of Complexity Across the Nexus" . Retrieved 21 May 2016.
  36. "Handling Complexity in Policy Evaluation" (PDF). Retrieved 11 June 2022.
  37. "Magenta Book" . Retrieved 11 June 2022.
  38. "Sociological Research Online" . Retrieved 2 December 2009.
  39. Peters, Stuart M.; Gilbert, G. Nigel (1997). "The electronic alternative: Sociological Research Online". Learned Publishing. 10 (4): 339–343. doi: 10.1087/09531519750146824 . S2CID   45211311.
  40. University of Surrey. "Social Research Update" . Retrieved 2 December 2009.
  41. Foresight (January 2006). "Intelligent Infrastructures Project" . Retrieved 2 December 2009.
  42. Royal Academy of Engineering, Group on Privacy and Surveillance (March 2007). Dilemmas of Privacy and Surveillance: Challenges of Technological Change (PDF). The Royal Academy of Engineering. p. 64. ISBN   978-1-903496-32-9. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 June 2011. Retrieved 2 December 2009.
  43. BBC News (26 March 2007). "Hi-tech 'threat' to private life" (Press release). Retrieved 4 December 2009.
  44. "Professor Nigel Gilbert - Social Science Expert Panel" (Press release). University of Surrey news release. 13 March 2012. Retrieved 20 May 2016.
  45. European Commission (25 April 2014). "List of members of the Future & Emerging Technologies Advisory Group" . Retrieved 20 May 2016.
  46. "University of Surrey professors receive Fellowship from Royal Society of Engineering" (Press release). University of Surrey news release. August 1999. Retrieved 2 December 2009.
  47. "European Social Simulation Association portal" . Retrieved 2 December 2009.
  48. "No. 61608". The London Gazette (Supplement). 11 June 2016. p. B9.