Key funding for Dutch human behaviour simulator study

Eight leading researchers at the University of Amsterdam have secured €400,000 of funding from Horizon 2020.

The researchers, based at the Center for Nonlinear Dynamics in Economics and Finance and the Center for Research in Experimental Economics and Political Decision Making, will use the funding for large scale experiments assessing human behaviour.

Receiving congratulations from Tinbergen Institute, the winners are Cars Hommes, Joep Sonnemans, Cees Diks, Jan Tuinstra, Florian Wagener, Marco van der Leij, Isabelle Salle and Aljaz Ule. The funded research will be undertaken as part of a three-year European IBSEN research project entitled ‘Bridging the gap: from Individual Behaviour to the Socio-tEchnical MaN’. Overall, €2.6m has been allocated to the project from Horizon 2020.

The IBSEN project begins on 1 September and, according to the Tinbergen Institute, ‘aims to find a breakthrough by examining human behaviour in large (1,000+ persons) structured groups using controlled lab and web experiments’.

It is hoped the outcomes of the study will enable the researchers to create a human behaviour simulator, ‘a technology providing a basis for socioeconomic simulations’. Such a development could have multisector benefits, including robotics and economics, along with ‘technological and societal impacts, including policy making in socially pressing issues’.