Summer School :
Models for Complex Systems in Human and Social Sciences
Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon
Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lettres et Sciences Humaines
July 19-31 2004


Important dates

Deadline for application : May 7 2004
Acceptation : May 28 2004
School : July 19-31 2004 at the Ecole Normale Supérieure Lettres et 
Sciences Humaines

Goals

Although complex systems based methods are more and more used to model 
social phenomena,
there is no place in Europe where there are thought as a whole.
  The aim of the school will be to develop the technical abilities
  of the participants to build a simple model and to use it at its 
maximal potential.
  The following aspects will be studied:

Description of the problem, modelling process, scaling aspects.
Choice of experimental protocols and of the best "measures"
  in order to highlight observable phenomena via simulations.
Presentation of the main methods and their practical application,
  without hoping exhaustivity during the 12 days of the school.

Topics

As we have just said, there is no place in Europe where are taught
in a systematic way the methods that can be used to model complex 
systems
  in human and social sciences. Since these methods usually come
  from other fields (mathematics, physics, computer science...),
  they are often unknown.

The school we propose to organize will have the role to fill
  this gap by proposing lectures given by world specialists
  of the domain and directed to an audience of researchers
  (including graduate students) working on modeling problems
  in human and social sciences.

The contents of the courses will relate more to the methods
rather on the application fields. Of course, the presented methods
  will be illustrated on examples coming from human and social sciences,
  but our wish is to focus on the methods rather than on specific 
particular case.

Computer simulations and experimentations will be studied under the 
format of mini-projects.

Speakers

Lectures will be given in english, following the format of
  4 sessions of 3 hours for each course, by

Robert Axtell, Brooking Institution, USA,
  Agent-Based Computational Modeling in the Social Sciences with 
Applications to Economics

Rama Cont, Ecole Polytechnique, France,
Agent-based models of financial markets

Sorin Solomon, Jérusalem University, Israël, Multi-agent theory,
  simulation and phenomena in Human and Social systems

Alessandro Vespignani, Laboratoire de Physique Théorique, Orsay, France,
  Structure and function of complex networks

Sara Franceschelli (ENS LSH),
  Michel Morvan (ENS Lyon)
  and Gérard Weisbuch (ENS Ulm)
will also teach and will ensure the scientific animation of the school.

Organisation

The summer school will be organized by Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon
  and hosted by the Ecole Normale de Lettres et Sciences Humaines.
  It will take place from July 19 to 31 2004 (22 half days)
in the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lettres et Sciences Humaines, in 
Lyon, France.
  It will be one of the major event organized in 2004 by the
  Institut des Systèmes Complexes (Complex Systems Institute)
  of Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon.

The two Ecoles Normales Supérieures in Lyon
  are two of the most prestigious places for
  higher education in France.
  One is specialized in sciences and the other in
  literature and human sciences.
The summer school will be one of the first steps
  in the creation of long term collaborations between them.

They are installed on two campuses in the south of Lyon
(close one to the other) and own residences allowing
  to propose good quality accomodations to the participants.

The organisation committee is composed by
  Sara Franceschelli (ENS LSH), Michel Morvan (ENS Lyon) and Gérard 
Weisbuch (ENS Paris).

Participants

The participants will mainly be modelers having reasonable
mathematical skills (graduate education in Mathematics, or Computer 
Science or Physics).
  Researchers from human or social sciences already having
  collaboration experiences with modelers
  and so having some basic mathematical culture can also apply.

The school will be organized for both junior and senior researchers.

The number of participants is limited to 50, mainly coming from 
european countries.

Applications

Please send your short CV (no more than 2 pages)
and a half page of motivations to [log in to unmask] before Mai 7 2004.


Financial support

Partial financial support (travel and/or accomodation)
will be available for participants on request.
The school is supported by the ACI
"Systèmes Complexes en Sciences Humaines et Sociales"
  and (tentative) by the European network Exystence.

Fees

A low financial participation will be requested from participants.
More specific information will be given in the next call for 
participation.






Gérard Weisbuch                Laboratoire de Physique Statistique ENS
[log in to unmask]      24 rue Lhomond 75005 Paris  France
phone  331 44 32 34 75    Fax 44 32 34 33
http://www.lps.ens.fr/~weisbuch

_______________________________________________________________________
Professor Nigel Gilbert,  Editor, Journal of Artificial Societies and
      Social Simulation, <http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/JASSS/>
         Centre for Research on Social Simulation (CRESS)
    Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK.
        Tel:+44 1483 689173   [log in to unmask]
                        <http://cress.soc.surrey.ac.uk/>