An ICTP Meeting in person

The ability to take collective actions, i.e. collective agency, is a key limiting factor for sustainability. Collective agency entails, among other things, identifying problems, understanding them, finding solutions, establishing consensus and implementing actions.
Each of these aspects imposes limits and challenges on collective agency and they entail non-trivial trade-offs, e.g. between efficiency and resilience, or between individual freedom and social welfare. Understanding these aspects is key for realistic efforts towards a sustainable future.

The workshop will discuss collective agency from different angles (sociology, political science, evolution of cultures, collective behaviour of animal groups and in artificial societies, neuroscience), drawing from different disciplines.

The workshop aims at promoting scientific research on these subjects, by identifying specific questions that can be tackled in a quantitative manner.

The workshop is supported by National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics (OGS) and Trieste International Foundation for the Progress and Freedom of Sciences (FIT) as part of The Laboratory on Quantitative Sustainability (TLQS) initiative.

Speakers:

Erol AKÇAY, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Madhur ANAND, University of Guelph, Canada
Marco Tulio ANGULO, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico
Elsa Anabelle ARCAUTE AIZPURU, UCL, UK
Jeferson Jacob ARENZON, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
Luis Miguel BETTENCOURT, University of Chicago Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation, USA
Fabio CACCIOLI, University College London, UK
Astrid DANNENBERG, University of Kassel, Germany
Brian FATH, Towson University, USA
Deborah Mary GORDON, Stanford University Department of Biology, USA
Ulrike HAHN, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK
Mohammad M. HERZALLAH, Palestinian Neuroscience Initiative Al-Quds University, State of Palestine
Thomas HILLS, University of Warwick, UK
Sanjay JAIN, University of Delhi, India
Fariba KARIMI, Graz University of Technology, Austria
May LIM, National Institute of Physics University of the Philippines Diliman, Philippines
Giacomo LIVAN, University College London, UK
Helga NOWOTNY, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
Joshua B. PLOTKIN, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Marta SALES-PARDO, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Spain
Matteo SMERLAK, ESPCI Paris - PSL Laboratoire Biophysique et Evolution, France
Michele STARNINI, Centai Institute, Italy
Alexander James STEWART, University of St. Andrews, UK
Alessandro TAVONI, University of Bologna, Italy
Guy Louis Marie THERAULAZ, Université Toulouse 3 - CNRS Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale, France
Stefan THURNER, Complexity Science Hub Vienna, Austria
Elke U. WEBER, Princeton University, USA
Karoline WIESNER, University of Potsdam, Germany
David WOLPERT, Santa Fe Institute, USA

Call for Contributed Abstracts: All applicants are requested to submit an abstract for a poster presentation. Abstract templates are available below for download.

Grants:
A limited number of grants are available to support the attendance of selected participants, with priority given to participants from developing countries. There is no registration fee.