Nigel Gilbert
Biographic Data
| ID | 156380 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nigel Gilbert |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nigel |
| FAMILY NAME | Gilbert |
| SIGNATURE | GILBERT N |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Surrey |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5937-2410 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 90 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 408 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 82 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 8 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1972 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 12 |
Exploring perceptions of smart, modular living in the UK: A think aloud study
While there is growing interest in the design and deployment of smart and modular homes in the UK, there remain questions about the public’s readiness and willingness to live in them. Understanding what conditions prospective residents might place upon the decisions to live in such homes stands to improve their design, helping them to meet with the expectations, and requirements of their residents. Through direct interaction with a prototype of a…
The PHEM-B toolbox of methods for incorporating the influences on Behaviour into Public Health Economic Models
This is the first attempt to rigorously and coherently propose methods to incorporate the influences on behaviour into health economic models of public health interventions. It may not always be feasible or necessary to model the influences on behaviour explicitly, but it is essential to develop an understanding of the key influences. Changing behaviour and maintaining that behaviour change could have different influences; thus, there could be be…
Unpacking a Black Box: A Conceptual Anatomy Framework for Agent-Based Social Simulation Models
This paper aims to improve the transparency of agent-based social simulation (ABSS) models and make it easier for various actors engaging with these models to make sense of them. It studies what ABSS is and juxtaposes its basic conceptual elements with insights from the agency/structure debate in social theory to propose a framework that captures the †̃conceptual anatomyâ€TM of ABSS models in a simple and intuitive way. The five elements of the f…
Mechanisms of metagovernance as structural challenges to levelling up in England
At the time of writing, the UK government is attempting to tackle place-based inequality through its ‘levelling up’ agenda. To be effective, such interventions require local institutions with the capacity, powers, and budgets to develop and implement long-term strategies. Multi-level metagovernance, the ongoing reorganisation of local governance systems by the central state, has become a salient political process in England, characterised by frag…
The Ethics of Agent-Based Social Simulation
The academic study and the applied use of agent-based modelling of social processes has matured considerably over the last thirty years. The time is now right to engage seriously with the ethics and responsible practice of agent-based social simulation. In this paper, we first outline the many reasons why it is appropriate to explore an ethics of agent-based modelling and how ethical issues arise in its practice and organisation. We go on to disc…
Talk Is Silver, Code Is Gold? Beyond Traditional Notions of Contribution in Peer Production: The Case of Drupal
Peer production communities are based on the collaboration of communities of people, mediated by the Internet, typically to create digital commons, as in Wikipedia or free software. The contribution activities around the creation of such commons (e.g., source code, articles, or documentation) have been widely explored. However, other types of contribution whose focus is directed toward the community have remained significantly less visible (e.g.,…
Policy evaluation for a complex world: Practical methods and reflections from the UK Centre for the Evaluation of Complexity across the Nexus
The value of complexity science and related approaches in policy evaluation have been widely discussed over the last 20 years, not least in this journal. We are now at a crossroads; this Special Issue argues that the use of complexity science in evaluation could deepen and broaden rendering evaluations more practical and rigorous. The risk is that the drive to better evaluate policies from a complexity perspective could falter. This special issue…
Computational Models That Matter During a Global Pandemic Outbreak: A Call to Action
The COVID-pandemic is causing a dramatic loss of lives worldwide, challenging the sustainability of our health care systems, threatening economic meltdown, and putting pressure on the mental health of individuals (due to social distancing and lock-down measures). The pandemic is also posing severe challenges to the scientific community, with scholars under pressure to respond to policymakers' demands for advice despite the absence of adequate, tr…
The eos project: Modelling Upper Palaeolithic social change
The objective of the EOS project (Doran 1982, 1992) is to investigate the growth of social complexity and, in particular, to formulate and experiment with an abstract computational version of an informal model proposed by Paul Mellars (1985) of the growth of social complexity in the Upper Palaeolithic period in southwestern France. At the heart of the project is the use of the concepts and techniques of distributed artificial intelligence (DAI) (…
Simulating Societies: The Computer Simulation of Social Phenomena
The role of civil society organisations in European responsible research and innovation
EC policy reveals a strong conviction that CSO’s main function in EU-funded research and innovation projects is to take care of the ‘societal perspective’, which would not be adequately represented otherwise. With this, CSOs are supposed to be the main advocates of RRI in project consortia and are supported by all kinds of EC policy measures to fulfil this role. This conviction is not only problematic due to definition problems concerning CSO as …
Computational Modelling of Public Policy: Reflections on Practice
Computational models are increasingly being used to assist in developing, implementing and evaluating public policy. This paper reports on the experience of the authors in designing and using computational models of public policy ('policy models', for short). The paper considers the role of computational models in policy making, and some of the challenges that need to be overcome if policy models are to make an e ective contribution. It suggests …
Agent-based modelling to predict policy outcomes: A food waste recycling example
Developing agent-based models of complex health behaviour
Managing non-communicable diseases requires policy makers to adopt a whole systems perspective that adequately represents the complex causal architecture of human behaviour. Agent-based modelling is a computational method to understand the behaviour of complex systems by simulating the actions of entities within the system, including the way these individuals influence and are influenced by their physical and social environment. The potential ben…
Social Dimensions of Organised Crime: Modelling the Dynamics of Extortion Rackets
This book presents a multi-disciplinary investigation into extortion rackets with a particular focus on the structures of criminal organisations and their collapse, societal processes in which extorti
How to build models for government: Criteria driving model acceptance in policymaking
Models are used to inform policymaking and underpin large amounts of government expenditure. Several authors have observed a discrepancy between the actual and potential use of models in government. While there have been several studies investigating model acceptance in government, it remains unclear under what conditions models are accepted. In this paper, we address the question “What criteria affect model acceptance in policymaking?”, the answ…
Self-Organizing Dynamical Systems
Modelling Research Policy: Ex-Ante Evaluation of Complex Policy Instruments
This paper presents the agent-based model INFSO-SKIN, which provides ex-ante evaluation of possible funding policies in Horizon 2020 for the European Commission’s DG Information Society and Media (DG INFSO). Informed by a large dataset recording the details of funded projects, the simulation model is set up to reproduce and assess the funding strategies, the funded organisations and projects, and the resulting network structures of the Commission…
Social Construction of Knowledge
Analysing Differential School Effectiveness Through Multilevel and Agent-Based Modelling
During the last thirty years education researchers have developed models for judging the comparative performance of schools, in studies of what has become known as 'differential school effectiveness'. A great deal of empirical research has been carried out to understand why differences between schools might emerge, with variable-based models being the preferred research tool. The use of more explanatory models such as agent-based models (ABM) has…
How Do Agents Make Decisions? A Survey
When designing an agent-based simulation, an important question to answer is how to model the decision making processes of the agents in the system. A large number of agent decision making models can be found in the literature, each inspired by different aims and research questions. In this paper we provide a review of 14 agent decision making architectures that have attracted interest. They range from production-rule systems to psychologically-a…
Modelling Norms
Manifesto de Ciência Social Computacional
A crescente integração da tecnologia em nossas vidas criou volumes sem precedentes de dados sobre o comportamento cotidiano da sociedade. Esses dados abrem novas oportunidades para se trabalhar em direção a um entendimento quantitativo dos sistemas sociais complexos, no âmbito de uma nova disciplina conhecida como Ciência Social Computacional. Num contexto de crises financeiras, revoltas e epidemias internacionais, fica clara a urgente necessidad…
Manifesto of computational social science
The increasing integration of technology into our lives has created unprecedented volumes of data on society’s everyday behaviour. Such data opens up exciting new opportunities to work towards a quantitative understanding of our complex social systems, within the realms of a new discipline known as Computational Social Science. Against a background of financial crises, riots and international epidemics, the urgent need for a greater comprehension…
Introduction to the Special Issue: The Processes of Methodological Innovation Narrative Accounts and Reflections
In recent years there has been an upsurge of interest in methodological innovation and innovative methodologies in the social sciences. Driven by a wider, global impetus for innovation, discussions have centred on the use, application, diffusion and success of new methods. In the social sciences in particular, this upsurge of interest has been attributed to a need to respond to the complexities of the social world that has encouraged methodologic…
Paid employment and women's health: A Benefit or a Source of Role Strain
Two contrasting theories of the relationship between paid employment and women's health are examined using data from the 1975 and 1976 General Household Survey. The 'role accumulation' hypothesis, which proposes that paid employment has beneficial effects on health, was supported for women without children, and for women over 40 with children. However, the causal ordering is unclear, for there is evidence that ill-health reduces the likelihood of…
Referencing as Persuasion
Problem Areas and Research Networks in Science
A general account is presented of the emergence, growth, and decline of scientific research networks and their associated problem areas. Research networks are seen to pass through three phases. The first, exploratory phase is distinguished by a lack of effective communication among participants and by the pursuit of imprecisely defined problems. The second phase is one of rapid growth, associated with increasing social and intellectual integratio…
Integrating Women into Class Theory
A theoretical framework is proposed by which women as well as men may be included in class theory, and a methodology is suggested by which one aspect of women's class location, their relationship to the labour market, may be measured. It is argued that social class in a Weberian sense may be seen as comprising two distinct although related dimensions. Firstly, that based upon relationship to the labour market, measured at the level of the individ…
Accounting for Error: How Scientists Construct their Social World when they Account for Correct and Incorrect Belief
There is an asymmetry in the procedures used by natural scientists to account for 'correct belief' and for 'error'. Correct belief is treated as the normal state of affairs, as deriving unproblematically from experimental evidence, and as requiring no special explanation. Errors are seen as something to be explained away, as due to the intrusion of non-scientific influences. An elaborate repertoire of interpretative resources is employed in accou…
The Transformation of Research Findings into Scientific Knowledge
conducting detailed and 'micro'-scale studies of scientific research. This has often been accompanied by a belief that the sociology of science ought to be cast within an 'interpretive' rather than within a 'normative' paradigm.1 As a result, some sociologists have begun to inquire about the everyday practices of research scientists, and others have looked at the ways in which knowledge of research techniques and innovations are transmitted from …
Men: The Forgotten Carers
The extent to which men are the primary carers of infirm elderly people and the amount of support men carers receive from the statutory and voluntary services relative to women carers is examined using data from the 1980 General Household Survey. It is shown that men make a larger contribution to caring than is often recognised
Warranting Scientific Belief
The ways in which scientists account for and justify their own scientific views are analyzed by examining in detail transcripts of interviews with biochemists working on oxidative phosphorylation. It is shown that scientists use two repertoires, the `empiricist' and the `contingent', to account for their beliefs. The empiricist repertoire derives from and reinforces the traditional conception of scientific rationality according to which data obta…
Joking Apart: Some Recommendations Concerning the Analysis of Scientific Culture
This paper is an attempt to show that scientific humour is an important topic analytically, because it reveals with particular clarity some of the interpretative resources by means of which scientists create social meaning. A discourse analysis is presented of a recurrent participants' `proto-joke' dealing with communication among scientists, of a satirical article appearing in a `joke journal', and of a cartoon. This analysis adds further suppor…
Putting Philosophy to Work: Karl Popper's Influence on Scientific Practice
Mechanisms of metagovernance as structural challenges to levelling up in England
At the time of writing, the UK government is attempting to tackle place-based inequality through its ‘levelling up’ agenda. To be effective, such interventions require local institutions with the capacity, powers, and budgets to develop and implement long-term strategies. Multi-level metagovernance, the ongoing reorganisation of local governance systems by the central state, has become a salient political process in England, characterised by frag…
Early Retirement in a Period of High Unemployment
Early retirement is a policy for tackling unemployment which is popular among unions, employers and government, but there has been little recent research on its social implications for the individuals concerned. This article examines the reasons given by older men for retiring early and investigates the extent of income poverty in early retirement. Particular attention is paid to how early retirement is defined and to the differences between the …
How to build and use agent-based models in social science
Experiments Are the Key: Participants' Histories and Historians' Histories of Science
Talking About Budgets: Time and Uncertainty in Household Decision Making
This paper reports findings from twenty-six interviews conducted with retired households about the way they make budgeting decisions. The data are presented with three objectives. First, to describe the way that households carry out the process of budgeting. Secondly, to consider the implications for economic and sociological theories of consumption. Thirdly, to construct a framework for understanding budgetary decision making which organises the…
Policy evaluation for a complex world: Practical methods and reflections from the UK Centre for the Evaluation of Complexity across the Nexus
The value of complexity science and related approaches in policy evaluation have been widely discussed over the last 20 years, not least in this journal. We are now at a crossroads; this Special Issue argues that the use of complexity science in evaluation could deepen and broaden rendering evaluations more practical and rigorous. The risk is that the drive to better evaluate policies from a complexity perspective could falter. This special issue…
What is the Ultimate Question? Some Remarks in Defence of the Analysis of Scientific Discourse
As Tom Gieryn' is clearly aware, there is a tendency to oversimplify intellectual boundaries in the course of lively academic debate. No doubt he is right in suggesting that commentators have previously often used the term 'Mertonian' rather carelessly in devising a background within which the originality of their own work can become evident. It seems likely that we all characterize intellectual movements to which we do not belong in ways which s…
Tools and Techniques for Social Science Simulation
Simulations as Tools for Modeling and Theory Building: N. Gilbert: Models, Processes and Algorithms: Towards a Simulation Toolkit.- J. Doran: Questions in the Methodology of Artificial Societies.- G. Muller: Computer Assisted Interfacing: On the Use of Computer Simulation for Theory Construction.- C. Stoica: Interactive Neural Networks as Tools for Modeling Social Systems.- Multi-Agent Based Simulations: W. Balzer: SMASS: A Serial Multi-Agent Sys…
A Simulation of the Structure of Academic Science
The contemporary structure of scientific activity, including the publication of papers in academic journals, citation behaviour, the clustering of research into specialties and so on has been intensively studied over the last fifty years. A number of quantitative relationships between aspects of the system have been observed. This paper reports on a simulation designed to see whether it is possible to reproduce the form of these observed relation…
Simulation: A New Way of Doing Social Science
Text, competence and logic: An exercise
Scientists' Theory Talk
Semi‐Markov processes and mobility: A note
How to build models for government: Criteria driving model acceptance in policymaking
Models are used to inform policymaking and underpin large amounts of government expenditure. Several authors have observed a discrepancy between the actual and potential use of models in government. While there have been several studies investigating model acceptance in government, it remains unclear under what conditions models are accepted. In this paper, we address the question “What criteria affect model acceptance in policymaking?”, the answ…
Introduction to the Special Issue: The Processes of Methodological Innovation Narrative Accounts and Reflections
In recent years there has been an upsurge of interest in methodological innovation and innovative methodologies in the social sciences. Driven by a wider, global impetus for innovation, discussions have centred on the use, application, diffusion and success of new methods. In the social sciences in particular, this upsurge of interest has been attributed to a need to respond to the complexities of the social world that has encouraged methodologic…
Two Markov Models of Neighborhood Housing Turnover
This paper develops two mathematical models of housing turnover in a neighborhood. The first of these draws upon the theory of non-homogeneous Markov processes and includes the effects of present neighborhood composition upon future turnover probabilities. The second model considers the turnover process as a Markov renewal process and therefore allows the inclusion of length of occupancy as a determinant of transition probabilities. Example calcu…
Semi‐Markov processes and mobility: A note
Problem Areas and Research Networks in Science
A general account is presented of the emergence, growth, and decline of scientific research networks and their associated problem areas. Research networks are seen to pass through three phases. The first, exploratory phase is distinguished by a lack of effective communication among participants and by the pursuit of imprecisely defined problems. The second phase is one of rapid growth, associated with increasing social and intellectual integratio…
The Transformation of Research Findings into Scientific Knowledge
conducting detailed and 'micro'-scale studies of scientific research. This has often been accompanied by a belief that the sociology of science ought to be cast within an 'interpretive' rather than within a 'normative' paradigm.1 As a result, some sociologists have begun to inquire about the everyday practices of research scientists, and others have looked at the ways in which knowledge of research techniques and innovations are transmitted from …
Referencing as Persuasion
Competition, differentiation and careers in science
A Simulation Approach to Teaching Survey Sampling
Of all the topics usually covered in a course on research met ods, the theory and techniques of sampling populations is among the more difficult to convey effectively to students. Although few sociology students have either the necessary background knowledge of probability theory or the opportunity of obtaining it, we require them to become familiar with the idea of sampling and to appreciate the merits of different sampling schemes. It is not, t…
The Sociology of Science in Europe, Soviet Sociology of Science
Being interviewed: A role analysis
Putting Philosophy to Work: Karl Popper's Influence on Scientific Practice
Sociological Methodology 1980
Warranting Scientific Belief
The ways in which scientists account for and justify their own scientific views are analyzed by examining in detail transcripts of interviews with biochemists working on oxidative phosphorylation. It is shown that scientists use two repertoires, the `empiricist' and the `contingent', to account for their beliefs. The empiricist repertoire derives from and reinforces the traditional conception of scientific rationality according to which data obta…
What is the Ultimate Question? Some Remarks in Defence of the Analysis of Scientific Discourse
As Tom Gieryn' is clearly aware, there is a tendency to oversimplify intellectual boundaries in the course of lively academic debate. No doubt he is right in suggesting that commentators have previously often used the term 'Mertonian' rather carelessly in devising a background within which the originality of their own work can become evident. It seems likely that we all characterize intellectual movements to which we do not belong in ways which s…
Joking Apart: Some Recommendations Concerning the Analysis of Scientific Culture
This paper is an attempt to show that scientific humour is an important topic analytically, because it reveals with particular clarity some of the interpretative resources by means of which scientists create social meaning. A discourse analysis is presented of a recurrent participants' `proto-joke' dealing with communication among scientists, of a satirical article appearing in a `joke journal', and of a cartoon. This analysis adds further suppor…
Accounting for Error: How Scientists Construct their Social World when they Account for Correct and Incorrect Belief
There is an asymmetry in the procedures used by natural scientists to account for 'correct belief' and for 'error'. Correct belief is treated as the normal state of affairs, as deriving unproblematically from experimental evidence, and as requiring no special explanation. Errors are seen as something to be explained away, as due to the intrusion of non-scientific influences. An elaborate repertoire of interpretative resources is employed in accou…
Modelling Society: An Introduction to Loglinear Analysis for Social Researchers
Scientists' Theory Talk
The General Household Survey as a Source for Secondary Analysis
In contrast to the importance placed on secondary analysis by researchers in other disciplines, British sociologists have long neglected the rich data available from large scale government surveys, perhaps because of technical obstacles. This report describes work to make the General Household Survey (GHS) data more easily accessible for sociological analysis, summarizes the contents and structure of the GHS and reviews the arrangements which hav…
Experiments Are the Key: Participants' Histories and Historians' Histories of Science
Opening Pandora's Box: A Sociological Analysis of Scientists' Discourse
Integrating Women into Class Theory
A theoretical framework is proposed by which women as well as men may be included in class theory, and a methodology is suggested by which one aspect of women's class location, their relationship to the labour market, may be measured. It is argued that social class in a Weberian sense may be seen as comprising two distinct although related dimensions. Firstly, that based upon relationship to the labour market, measured at the level of the individ…
Paid employment and women's health: A Benefit or a Source of Role Strain
Two contrasting theories of the relationship between paid employment and women's health are examined using data from the 1975 and 1976 General Household Survey. The 'role accumulation' hypothesis, which proposes that paid employment has beneficial effects on health, was supported for women without children, and for women over 40 with children. However, the causal ordering is unclear, for there is evidence that ill-health reduces the likelihood of…
Replication and Mere Replication
Occupational Classes and Inter-Class Mobility
Text, competence and logic: An exercise
Computer Science (58 works) · Sociology (54 works) · Social science (24 works) · Epistemology (23 works) · Political science (23 works) · Psychology (23 works) · Engineering (21 works) · Economics (16 works) · Philosophy (16 works) · Management science (15 works)