Towards a ‘Global Systems Science’

Implementing evidence-based policies in a networked global world

The twofold role of ICT in responses to global challenges:Providing evidence

Driving action and change

Ralph Dum

Digital ScienceDirectorate General

CONNECTEuropean Commission

Can ICT help society face global challenges?

GLOBAL = borderless, worldwide and cutting across different policy sectors

Examples: financial crisis, climate change impact, food security, pandemics ....

Consequences for policy AND science:-Policy decisions in different sectors are no longer disconnected: no more silos Unintended consequences of actions (why do bio-ful subsidies cause foot riots?)

-In interconnected systems rare events escalate: ‘I am not worried about the mean. It’s the tail!’ (Lord Stern)

The role of S&T can no longer be restricted to provide knowledge and to create new technologies, increasingly it has to play a role in providing insights in the functioning our society and its link to environment.

Twofold role of ICT(i)Policy informatics: system models and data in support of policies(ii)Societal informatics: from models and data to action

There are many webs that humanity has spunIT has reshaped all of them and has weaved ‘the Web’

Facebook

Threat:Governing such global ‘hyper-

connected’ networks becomes a challenge

Opportunity:Can we profit from the

collective power of such networks?

Stefano Battiston, networksof corporate control

IT helped humanity spin global ‘webs’ (trade, finance, terrorism)

They are all interconnected!

Future(s): Web as Polis

-Real-time feedback on policies-'Twitterrevolutions

-Republique 2.0 (Michel Rocard)-Can ‘the Web’ help drive political agendas?

Opportunities for societal change

Future(s): Web as social lab

- Web-based social experiments- Social data treasures online-‘Twitterology’: analysis of public sentiment

Opportunities for the social sciences

Present: Web as Agora

- Blogs/twitter: Hyde park online

- Collective/Participatory approaches to federate human intelligence;crowdsourcing

-'Web of open data'

Past: Web as Alexandrian Library

-‘The Web, the next Revolution after Gutenberg‘ (The Economist)

- Wikipedia: collective Encyclopedia

The ‘Web’ - a social space:A future driver of social change and policy action

New opportunities for the social sciences and for policies

Can ICT help society to face global challenges? Policy informatics

Policy informatics in support of evidence-based policies

Better understand emerging system-wide risks from global challenges and to better anticipate consequences of policy actions in interconnected systems

-Advanced simulation of interconnected socio-economic-ecological systems

-System Science/Network science to better understand highly connected systems

-'Big Data' to help ground policies in the abundance of social, economic, and ecological data available.

“A data state of mind: data can change mindsets “(Hans Roslin)

Data on networks as policy inputEconomic Complexity Measures

Economic complexity measures (German product space) : Cesar Hidalgowww.chidalgo.com/papers.html

The Observatory of Economic Complexity is a an open source project that allows users to quickly compose a visual narrative about countries and the products they exchange.

Network of trade

Data on networks as policy inputPandemics modelling

Example: Humans in the loop: A vicious circle of positive feedback loops

Source: Tyndall centre

Greenhouse gases Warming Change in economic behaviour GHG …

D = V * Δ C in climate change The unbearable linearity of thinking

Example: Dynamics and Non-linearity in economics

Equilibria are neither unique nor easy to reach dynamically(in contrast to what academics in economics think)

The unbearable linearity of thinking: General equilibrium economics

Does Market wisdom excel?Does Market wisdom excel?Network effects in finance: cascading failures Network effects in finance: cascading failures

System effects dominate|:Assess Systemic risk due to feedback loops in network

Use of specific quantitative measures from network theory (beyond standard equilibrium economics)

Role of agency:Feedback loops between models on derivative products and behavior of agents

EC projects in GSS: NESS, FOC,CRISIS

Opportunity for data driven approaches:

After financial crisis banks must/want release more information on their activities. Scientists are using now these data to build better system-wide financial models

Measures of centrality - importance as DebtRank: Are banks too big to fail?Measures of centrality - importance as DebtRank: Are banks too big to fail?

-The problem of trust (in experts, models, authorities): ICT to engage societal stakeholders in the process of finding and evaluating evidence

-Clash of values with scientific evidence: Evidence must be on both, scientific facts and priorities/values in society.

-The problem of uncertainty and of timescales: Decisions have to be taken NOW even in case of uncertain input.

'Policy is not Nescafé' ( Hubert Vedrine) Better understanding of the underlying societal dynamics -see tragedy of the commons (Elinor Ostrom)

Evidence-based policies? What evidence? So what? ICT as a means to engage society in behavioral changes

‘Why don’t we do what we know we should be doing?’(Joseph Tainter in ‘Why do complex societies fail?’ )

 “Revolutions do not happen when a society adopts new tools but only when it adoptsnovel behaviors. For IT most of that change is still in the future“(Clay Shirky)

Can ICT help society to face global challenges? Societal informatics

. Societal informatics in support of change - From models to action

GSS must pay special attention to its interface with policy and societal stakeholders

The social life of information: ICT facilitating societal processes-ICT to encourage participation of stakeholders in acquiring/analysing evidence-ICT to trigger societal change-ICT to visualise data and to better convey concepts and model results

ICT and the social sciences: a data driven experimental social science

The ‘ambiance’ is the coherent collection of signs that trigger the enacting of a class of behaviors.(Jean Baudrillard, Le système des objets)

Hundertwasser (1952) ‘Transautomation

Can ICT trigger a class of behaviours in ‘social space’? From Ambient Intelligence in urban spaces to

ambient intelligence in social space

Villagers carry a GPS to record location of their hunting grounds, sacred trees and important rivers to fight illegal logging

GPS helps Pygmies defend forestJ. Lewis (UCL)

Symbols are used instead of alphabet

Harnessing the power of collective Intelligence Example: Communities collectively become

‘human’ sensors

Street-level London air pollution warnings via mobile phones: Nitrogen dioxide concentrations

Collective gathering of data:Increasing trust in data and enhancing awareness

Use of mobile phone data linked into a social network--> collective data gathering and collective awareness

EC funded project:Everyaware

From objective monitoring - temperature, noise, air quality...to subjective monitoring - opinions, personal experiences ...

Impact on individual and collective behavior

“Tell me, I forget. Show me, I remember. Involve me, I understand. C

Harnessing the power of collective IntelligenceExample: Civic media’

ICT allows citizens to map out their ‘environments’

Other examples:Web user activity reflects or anticipate market dynamics (EC project FOC)Google used in prediction of spread of pandemics

Summary: Towards a ‘Global Systems Science’- GSSProviding evidence

Driving action and change

Goal: Based on simulation of and Big Data on highly connected systems, to stimulate societal and policy action in response to global challenges like climate change, financial crisis.

Two pillars for research and practice of GSS: (i) Policy informatics in support of evidence-based policies in highly connected systems: Simulation of highly interconnected systems and Big Data for social use to help ground policies in the abundance of social, economic, and ecological data. Tools to convey the results of models and to present data: narratives, games , data visualization

(ii) Societal informatics in support of policy action and societal change - From models to action: Social media and participatory ICT tools encourage participation of stakeholders in acquiring scientific evidence and trigger trust and engagement of society to scientific evidence in given policy domains.Tools for collective data gathering, Prediction (anticipation) via social network analysis

Focus on selected policy areas: dynamics of financial markets, urban systems dynamics, climate change impact.

A new unit in DG CONNECT on digital sciences with an emphasis on global systems science in strong collaboration with the EC policy directorates, parliament, and civic society.

Call on policy modelling: WP2013 Objective 5.4 “ICT for Governance and Policy Modelling”

Consultations with policy directorates in EC and international bodies (OECD, IMF...)

Series of workshops to elaborate on input to selected policy areas-After the financial crisis: harnessing the global economic network-Urbanism: cities as global systems-Climate change impact: global responses

Series of workshops to develop an ICT research agenda in relevant ICT tools:- Big Data- Modelling and HPC- Collaborative tools (crowdsourcing)- Conveying model results via narratives, games- Link to art as a conveyor of messages

Towards a ‘Global Systems Science’Steps towards a research agenda and towards policy input

Objective 5.4: ICT for Governance and Policy

Excerpts of WP text pertinent for GSS:

Develop effective policy tools for understanding complex environment, stimulating sustainable economic growth, addressing financial crisis, active involvement of citizens, in particular younger generation in decision making

Behavioural/societal aspects taken into account in policy design, tools to enhance trust by society, involve citizens and young people's involvement in decision-making processes

Enablers: Possible areas:-System Models addressing  decisions  in a global networked context. To better understand interdependencies between economic, social, and ecological systems in order to allow coherent decisions across different domains.

-ICT tools and online social media for collaborative governance and policy modeling show great opportunities for empowerment of citizens and increased transparency in decision-making

-To improve the interface/link between modellers and societal stakeholders:ICT tools that allow engagement of stakeholders in the process of gathering data and analysing impact of models on policy decisions

Contribute to the elaboration of a research agenda by joining the GSDP,NESS and INSISTE workshops and

consultation!

Funded Networks to elaborate a research agenda in GSS- GSDP Global Systems Dynamics and Policies: www.GSDP.eu

- NESS Non-Equilibrium Social Sciences: http://nessnetwork.eu/index.php/Main_Page- INSITE http://insite.ecltech.org/index.php/Main_Page

Thank you

The views expressed in this presentation are the author’s, not the European Commission’s