International Workshop on Challenges and Visions in the Social Sciences

including a Summer School on Modeling and Simulation for Young Scientists

Semper's lecture hall of ETH Zurich (Switzerland), August 18-23, 2008

Review

• read the protocol here
• watch conference talks on videolectures.net

Quick navigation:

• Virtual Journal (Articles/Publications related to speaker presentations)
  
• Workshop Poster
  
• Summer School Tutorials
  
• Workshop Program
  

By means of more than 20 keynote talks by outstanding international scientists and interdisciplinary discussions, the workshop aims at identifying future trends in the social sciences, and problems that will have to be addressed. We want to come up with visionary ideas of what will be the important topics over the next 10 or 20 years, and try to formulate a list of hard, ambitious, and important problems to be addressed by collaborative, international research projects. Contributions may be methodologically or problem oriented, but should always be of interest to a wider scientific community (which also implies to avoid special terminology in the talks, where possible, or otherwise to introduce it).

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Some examples of possible subject areas are:

• Empirical challenges: What can we learn from new data sources (e.g. data from Web 2.0, neural imaging, combinations of surveys with behavioral experiments and/or biological data)?
• Methodological challenges: What is missing in current models and simulations of social phenomena?
• Practical challenges: How can we anticipate and respond to problems due to globalization, individualization, aging societies, environmental pollution, international conflicts and other socio-economically relevant changes?

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The meeting will combine elements of an interdisciplinary workshop with a think tank and a summer school for young scientists. Further information will follow soon.

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Interested scientists and students are asked to send an e-mail to

Dr. Sergi Lozano (slozano@ethz.ch) to be included in the e-mail distribution list of this workshop.

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I look forward to meeting you!

Dirk Helbing, on behalf of the organizing committee.

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• Workshop Poster download
  

We would be grateful for displaying the workshop poster at the information board of your institute.

Deadlines and Fees:

• July 15, 2008: Deadline for Early Registration
• July 15, 2008: Deadline for Poster Contributions
• May 10, 2008: Submissions of abstracts for oral contributions or tutorials
  

Early Registration:

• Normal participation: 320 CHF (ca. 199€ /291$)
• Students with a valid student card: 160 CHF (ca. 99€ /146$)
• Organizer and Keynote Speaker: 0 CHF
  

Fees after July 15, 2008:

• Normal participation: 386 CHF (ca. 240€ /358$)
• Students with a valid student card: 194 CHF (ca. 120€ /178$)
• Organizer and Keynote Speaker: 0 CHF

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Venue

Map of conference facilities (PDF) »»

Arrival in Zurich

Take the train to travel from Zurich Airport to Zurich main station.

Detailed information »»

From Zurich main station to the ETH main building, take tram no. 6 (direction "Zoo") from "Bahnhofstrasse" or tram no. 10 (direction "Seebach") from "Bahnhofplatz" to the stop "ETH/Universitätsspital". Alternatively, take the "Polybahn" at "Central".

Detailed directions from main station to ETH HG »»

Semper Auditorium

The workshop will be held at the Semper Auditorium in the ETH main building at Rämistrasse 101 (ETH HG G 60). Registration is between 8 and 9 am, the conference starts at 9 am.

Map of ETH HG »»

The Semper Auditorium is on floor G (3rd floor) in the ETH main building (Room ETH G 60). Inside the main building, follow the guideposts or ask at the reception.

Plan of the G floor at ETH HG »»

Accommodation

A list of selected Hotels in Zürich, please book by yourself.

Hotel Tiefenau ****, see www.tiefenau.ch (with air conditioning, queen size bed)
Hotel Rigihof ****, see www.hotel-rigihof.ch (with air conditioning, queen size bed)
Hotel Krone Unterstrass ****, see www.hotel-krone.ch (with air conditioning, queen size bed)

Hotel Basilea ***, see www.hotelbasilea.ch
Hotel Bristol ***, see www.hotelbristol.ch
Hotel Comfort Inn Royal ***, see www.comfortinn.ch
Hotel Leoneck ***, see www.leoneck.ch
Hotel Rex ***, see www.zuerich-hotels.ch
Hotel Rütli ***, see www.rutli.ch
Hotel Sunnehus ***, see www.hotelsunnehus.ch
Hôtel du Théâtre ***, see www.hotel-du-theatre.ch (with air conditioning, queen size bed)
Claridge Hotel Tiefenau ***, see www.tiefenau.ch
Novotel Zürich West ***, see www.accorhotels.com

ZicZackRock Hotel**, see www.booking.com
Youth Hostel Zurich, see www.hihostels.com
Hostel Suisse Zurich, see www.hostelsuisse.ch

Registration

Financial support to students

Some financial support will be available for a certain number of students. The support, if granted, will cover accommodation for up to 5 nights in Hotel St. Josef (http://www.st-josef.ch/).

To apply for support, students should:

• justify their need in the 'comments' field of the registration form,
• submit an abstract to the workshop for an oral or poster presentation.
• send their CV to slozano<<at>>ethz.ch, indicating that they have already completed the previous two steps.

The support will be granted on the basis of need (so, applications from countries with weak financial support to young researchers are specially encouraged), and on the scientific merit of both the submitted abstract and the candidate.

The deadline for applications to the financial support is April 30, 2008. We will communicate our decision to all the applicants by mid May.

Note that granted students will have to pay their conference fee in advance, and will not be refunded in case of canceling their registration.

Review

read the protocol here

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supported by:

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