1. The Future of ABSS-SIG www.davidhales.com - CPM - Manchester History of ABSS/SIMSOC ESSA, NACSOS Hopes & Fears

2. SimSoc consortium (1990…) SimSoc informal workshops… (now up to 6) UCL Press (Simulating Societies, Artificial Societies) Journal – JASSS Nigel Gilbert, Jim Doran, Rosaria Conte, Rainer Hegselmann, Klaus Troitzsch MABS (ICMAS 1998 – AAMAS 2003) History – The Past….

3. The European Society for Social Simulation http://essa.cfpm.org Call – JASSS June 2002 – Scott Moss 150 (and growing) members – almost all institutions across Europe involved in Social Simulation Distinctive European ABSS research approach (not just Europe - South America also). NAACSOS (North American Association for Computational Social and Organizational Science) ESSA + NAACSOS = World Federation

4. Hopes & Fears ABSS-SIG community dissolves when AgentLinkII mutates into AgentLinkIII ? One ad-hoc grouping after another – dependent on vicarious funding policies MAS community re-invent “our” wheels No consistent and focused European and world community for ABSS. Loss of connection with wider MAS community

5. Hopes and Fears ESSA conference (SimSoc 6 organised by Wander Jager) 2003 (NACSOS 2003) World conference ESSA+NACSOS 2004 With ESSA consultation – the construction of taught Postgraduate Course(s) (MSc) in ABSS – Text book (Nigel and Klaus) EUROSIS Initiative ESSA – an incubator for FP6 and other collaborative proposals (starting here!) ABSS becomes central to MAS problems (AAMAS 2002) Industrial partnerships and sponsorship

6. Next Steps… ABSS-SIG discussion list abss@mmu.ac.uk (subscribe – discuss) Join ESSA list (essa.cfpm.org) Continue the development of FP6 and associated proposals and consortia MABS 2003, ESSA 2003, M2M – calls will go out on ABSS and ESSA lists.

7. Input