Social Simulation 2015 (The Eleventh Conference of the European Social Simulation Association) will take place in Groningen, September 14-18, 2015. We invite researchers and practitioners from anthropology, archeology, computer science, artificial intelligence, biology, economics, environmental sciences, geography, history, political sciences, psychology and sociology, among others, to participate in this conference. ESSA aims to foster our understanding of social complexity problems by means of computational simulations. Contributions on the latest results of research and discussions on emergent phenomena and modeling issues related to a variety of research subjects in social simulation are welcome, whether theoretical, experimental, practical, or technical.

Besides the usual conference contributions of full articles, extended abstracts and poster presentations, Social Simulation 2015 also allows for submissions for Special Interest (SIG) group sessions ( http://www.essa2015.org/new-page/ ) and for the ESSA@work track ( http://www.essa2015.org/essawork/ ).

Submission for one of the SIG sessions requires indicating for the special session when submitting. Submissions that are rejected for a SIG session BUT accepted for the conference will be scheduled as a regular presentation in the conference.

The ESSA@work session offers participants the opportunity to present their work as work in progress. This is particularly relevant for extended abstract submissions, but also possible for full paper submissions. The ESSA@work track is designed for researchers to present problems and questions related to the design, building or validation stages of model development. The sessions in this track will have presentations and feedback from the audience like in any other session. However, in each talk there will be an expert and co-ESSA@workers present to provide in-depth feedback, based on the talk and on the papers read beforehand. If your submission should be considered for the ESSA@work track then this must be indicated explicitly when submitting your contribution. Participants may either present at ESSA@work or in the general conference track but not in both. Submissions that are rejected for ESSA@work BUT accepted for the conference will be scheduled as a regular presentation in the conference. 

Contributions to Social Simulation 2015

The following types of contributions are accepted:

•   Full papers – in the length of 10 to 12 pages, should be comprehensive and consist of detailed presentation of theory, methodology and simulation results. Option to flag for the ESSA@work track.

•   Extended abstracts – in the length of 3 to 4 pages, which presents research in progress with enough detail to ensure proper evaluation and discussion. Option to flag for the ESSA@work track.

•   Posters – maximum allowed size A1 (smaller sizes are acceptable), should present the current work in progress. An abstract (1-2 pages) should be submitted before contributions deadline.

The full papers have to be in the Springer LNAI format: http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-6-793341-0. In order to unify the layout of abstracts that will be distributed for the conference, we strongly encourage you to format all your contributions using this template.

Full Paper / Extended Abstracts Submission

In order to submit a contribution authors must register to the EasyChair Conference System. Submissions of contributions should use the following link: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ssc2015 

After registration in Easychair, authors are allowed to submit the full-paper (10-12 pp.) or the extended abstract (3-4 pp.) in PDF format before the extended submission deadline for papers or abstracts (April 27th). The contributions should provide sufficient background information, including adequate references, and they should clearly indicate the original contribution. Authors must verify that all fonts used in the manuscript are embedded within the PDF file.

In case of a submission that is flagged to be presented as ESSA@work, the authors will be prompted with an additional request to provide a further paragraph  (250 words) detailing a problem or specific question that the participant would like to discuss in the ESSA@work session and some information on about background and skills. 

Please, note that reviewing for the SSC2015 Conference is blind to the identities of the authors. The first page, on which the paper body begins, should include the title, abstract, and keywords, but not the acknowledgements and names or affiliations of the authors. The references should include all published literature relevant to the paper, including previous works of the authors. However, take care when referring to one’s own work: use the third person, rather than the first person. For example, say “Previously, Miguel (Miguel, 2000) has shown that...,” rather than “In our previous work (Miguel, 2000) we have shown that....”. Try to avoid including any information in the body of the paper or references that would identify the authors or their institutions. Such information may be added to the final camera-ready version for publication.