Biography

Nigel Gilbert read for a first degree in Engineering, intending to go into the computer industry. However, he was lured into sociology and obtained his doctorate on the sociology of scientific knowledge from the University of Cambridge, under the supervision of Michael Mulkay. His research and teaching interests have reflected his continuing interest in both sociology and computer science (and engineering more widely).

His main research interests are processual theories of social phenomena, the development of computational sociology and the methodology of computer simulation, especially agent-based modelling. He is Director of the Centre for Research in Social Simulation.

He is also Director of the University's Institute of Advanced Studies and responsible for its development as a leading centre for intellectual interchange.

He is the author or editor of several textbooks on sociological methods of research and statistics and editor of the Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation.

Research Interests

Computational social science, sociology of science and science policy, innovation, consumer behaviour, sociology of the environment, privacy and surveillance.

Current projects include:

Evolution and Resilience of Industrial Ecosystems (ERIE)

ERIE addresses a series of fundamental questions relating to the application of complexity science to social and economic systems. The programme aims to embed cutting-edge complexity science methods and techniques within prototype computational tools that will provide policymakers with realistic and reliable platforms for strategy-testing in real-world socio-economic systems.

Quality Collectives (QLectives)

QLectives aims to combine three recent trends within information systems:

• Social networks - in which people link to others over the Internet to gain value and facilitate collaboration)
• Peer production - in which people collectively produce informational products and experiences without traditional hierarchies or market incentives
• Peer-to-Peer systems - in which software clients running on user machines distribute media and other information without a central server or administrative control

QLectives aims to bring these together to form Quality Collectives, i.e. functional decentralised communities that self-organise and self-maintain for the benefit of the people who comprise them. The project will generate theory at the social level, design algorithms and deploy prototypes targeted towards two application domains:

QLectives is supported by the European Commission 7th Framework Programme (FP7) for Research and Technological Development under the Information and Communication Technologies Theme, Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) Proactive, Call 3: ICT-2007.8.4 Science of Complex Systems for socially intelligent ICT (COSI-ICT).

SIMIAN

The SIMIAN (Simulation Innovation: a Node) project is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council to promote and develop social simulation in the UK. The project started in September 2008, and involves a collaboration between the Centre for Research in Social Simulation (CRESS) and Dr Edmund Chattoe-Brown at the University of Leicester. SIMIAN is a node of the National Research Methods Centre. The project involves a programme of training courses and three "demonstrator" simulations chosen to address important social science challenges.

Recently completed projects include:

NewTies

The NEW TIES project  aimed to grow an artificial society using computer programming that develops agents—or adaptive, artificial beings—that have independent behaviours.  The project's goal was to evolve an artificial society capable of exploring and understanding its environment through cooperation and interaction. The agents are sufficiently complex and their environment demanding, which enables them to develop a communication system to learn how to cooperate and to adapt.

Emergence in the loop (EMIL)

The main objective of this project was to understand and develop design strategies able to cope with the complex 2-way dynamics of sociality, consisting of emergent and immergent processes: from interaction among individual agents to aggregate level, and immergence of entities (norms) at the aggregate level into agents' minds. In particular, it focused on norm innovation. As research priorities, beside dealing with incompleteness and uncertainty, it contributed to the understanding and description of hierarchic systems by describing agents acting on multiple, i.e. individual, communitarian and institutional levels.

Network Models, Governance and R&D collaboration networks (NEMO)

The objective of NEMO was to investigate the interplay between political governance, structure and function of politically induced R&D collaboration networks, in particular the networks that have emerged in the European Framework Programmes. The ultimate goal was to identify ways to create and to appraise desirable ('optimal') network structures for typical functions of such R&D collaboration networks (e.g. knowledge creation, transfer and (distribution). This will aid policymakers at all political levels in improving the effectiveness and efficiency of network-based policy instruments at promoting the knowledge economy in Europe.

Pattern Resilience (PATRES)

The project developed methods and prototype software tools for modelling and managing pattern resilience in complex systems. Pattern resilience is understood as the capacity of the system to maintain or to recover some desired pattern dynamics (which are related to useful functions) in a changing environment. The pattern dynamics are evolving statistical regularities which are generated by the interconnected components of the system. The methods will be tested on a set of applications, including: bacteria dynamics, land-use in semi-arid savannas, learning of sequences in basal ganglia, language variety, and biotech firm networks.

SIMWEB: aimed to provide European businesses in the digital contents sector with insights and tools which will enable them to take informed business strategy decisions and become more competitive by adapting their traditional business models. To achieve this objective, SimWeb has designed and implemented sector models based on innovative, reusable, and highly scalable multi-agent simulation technology. These computer-based models, calibrated to market data extracted from sector surveys, allow market participants in the digital contents sector to run through a variety of social and economic scenarios, and observe the impact they have on their businesses in particular, and on the competitive digital contents landscape in general.

EICSTES: European Indicators, Cyberspace and the Science-Technology-Economy System, was a project funded by the European Union to develop indicators of how the Science-Technology-Economy system is being affected by the growth of the Internet. Our contribution is an analysis of how the web is used, looking at it from the point of view of the user, rather than the technology.

FIRMA: Freshwater Integrated Resource Management with Agents was an EU project that brought together environmental scientists and social scientists to develop simulations to help manage drinking water at the local level in Europe.

PETRAS was an EU project that compared public and business reactions to proposals to implement ecological tax reforms in Europe (project completed).

SEIN: Simulation of self-organising Innovation Networks was an EU project that developed a theory of innovation networks, expressed as a computational model. The project also carryied out case studies of biotechnology, web designers, combined heat and power, and mobile communications research to examine the role of innovation networks (project completed).

IMAGES: This EU project developed a simulation model for EU policymakers to help them design better 'Agri-Environmental Measures' (contracts with farmers that pay them to farm in a more environmentally desirable way) (project completed).

SOEIS: the Self-organisation of the European Information Society, an EU project for which the contribution from the University of Surrey has been to carry out a comparative study of the research funding systems in European states.

EPRESS: this JISC funded project has developed tools for publishing electronic journals on the internet.

Publications

Agent-Based Models (Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences), 2008, Sage Publications.
From Postgraduate to Social Scientist: A Guide to Key Skills (Sage Study Skills Series) 2006, Sage Publications.
Simulation for the Social Scientist, second edition 2005, Nigel Gilbert and Klaus G. Troitzsch, Open University Press (also available in Japanese, Russian and Spanish).
Understanding Social Statistics, 2000, Jane Fielding and Nigel Gilbert, Sage Publications.
Researching Social Life, second edition, 2001, edited by Nigel Gilbert, Sage Publications.

Opening Pandora's Box, available online (2003), Cambridge University Press, 1984.

A complete list of Publications can be found here.

Teaching

Research methods, computational social science

Professional Activities

Chair, Management Board, Sociological Research Online
Editor, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation
Editor, Social Research Update
Director, Centre for Research in Social Simulation
Director, University of Surrey Institute of Advanced Studies