Contested modelling

Abstract

The role and function of expert computational modelling in real-world decision-making is changing. We discuss some empirical and theory-based improvements to the coupling of the modelling process and the real world, including social and behavioural processes, which we have expressed as a set of questions that we believe need to be answered by all projects engaged in such modelling. These are based on a systems analysis of four projects that the authors have worked on recently, addressing the complexity of intervention, and covering different scales and timeframes. These proposed improvements require new approaches for analysing the relationship between a project’s models and its publics and reflect what we believe is a necessary dialogue between the realms of expert scientific modelling and systems thinking. We believe this would be beneficial, and this paper is an attempt to start that dialogue and reflects communication between two practitioners sat within differing traditions and puzzling how to integrate perspectives. Having articulated our purpose through surfacing a number of research questions we seek wider participation in possible approaches to answering them.The role and function of expert computational modelling in real-world decision-making is changing. We discuss some empirical and theory-based improvements to the coupling of the modelling process and the real world, including social and behavioural processes, which we have expressed as a set of questions that we believe need to be answered by all projects engaged in such modelling. These are based on a systems analysis of four projects that the authors have worked on recently, addressing the complexity of intervention, and covering different scales and timeframes. These proposed improvements require new approaches for analysing the relationship between a project’s models and its publics and reflect what we believe is a necessary dialogue between the realms of expert scientific modelling and systems thinking. We believe this would be beneficial, and this paper is an attempt to start that dialogue and reflects communication between two practitioners sat within differing traditions and puzzling how to integrate perspectives. Having articulated our purpose through surfacing a number of research questions we seek wider participation in possible approaches to answering them