CaterFly
Meet CaterFly: a community that brings together early-stage researchers that work at the intersection of agent-based modelling and behavioural science. With the energy transition as our topic of interest. Next to battling the difficulties that arise with conducting interdisciplinary science, our aim is to learn from each other, sharpen our research together and enhance collaboration between starting researchers in this new and upcoming field. Want to learn more? Please contact Lukas, Mariëlle or Lynn (email addresses can be found below). If you want to be on the mailing list to learn about upcoming events, please let Mariëlle know by sending an email to m.d.a.rietkerk@tudelft.nl.
Events
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CaterFly meeting. Jan-19, 2024
There was another double CaterFly meeting this month:
Firstly, the authors of the joint Caterfly paper met to discuss current progress and next steps. Then, as usual, there was the plenary session with all CaterFly members. We started 2024 with a very interesting presentation by Marten van der Kam on the social simulation of consumer co-adaptation to low-carbon energy technologies. This was followed by a fruitful discussion about formalising empirical data in agent-based models, among other things. At the end of the meeting there was a teaser for a planned face-to-face meeting at the end of June.
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CaterFly meeting. Dec-15, 2023
Approach paper meeting
Lukas Schubotz and Hannah Galster took up the role of coordinating our collaborative paper. In preparation of this meeting, they collected input of all co-authors regarding the goal of the paper, the target audience, and main research questions. The purpose of this meeting was to streamline our perspectives on these points.Plenary meeting
Hannah Galster presented her work on “Representing energy-related behavior of households and individuals in national energy system models”. She shared the results of a literature review of energy system models that include behavior and the main challenges that remain to make the representation of behavior in the models more realistic. This was followed by a Q&A. -
CaterFly meeting. Nov-17, 2023
This month featured a double CaterFly meeting: CaterFly members that are contributing to the paper met with each other, followed by a plenary meeting with all CaterFly members. In the first meeting, we discussed updates from the psychologists team and the modelers team and then spent the rest of the meeting on aligning our aims for the paper. Further discussion is required to develop an outline for the paper and come to an agreement regarding the content. The second meeting was dedicated to two presentations by CaterFly members Philipp Eppe and Fernanda Reintgen Kamphuisen, who shared their latest work with us.
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Legends of the CaterFly. Oct-20, 2023
CaterFly is growing! We welcomed our new members Ryu, Stephanie, Agnieszka, Teng Li, Marlene, Jianyu, and Katharina. This meeting was focused on a discussion of how our community would like to proceed in terms of collaborations and organizational matters. Old and new members shared their ideas for making our monthly meetings valuable to everyone. We decided to set up a rotating schedule of chairpersons and presenters, where all of us get to share their work, practice upcoming presentations, or discuss any social simulation related challenges. We discussed the possibilities for setting up another in-person event for our community to get together – perhaps we’ll even go on a “cocooning” writing retreat? The “Beyond words” paper some of us are writing together will be separated from our monthly CaterFly meetings. Currently, the social psychologists team and the modelers team are preparing an overview of their approach to developing a model. The teams will meet for a multidisciplinary discussion on the 17th of November.
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Legends of the ClaterFly. Meet-up Jul-14, 2023
Following the kick-off in June, the goal of this online meeting was to begin setting up a paper where we outline differences in modelling approaches across social psychologists and modelers. Our “Beyond words” paper will be a follow-up to a recently published article that featured interdisciplinary conversations on different understandings of common terms in the Social Psychology and Social Simulation fields (Wijermans et al, 2022. See link). We welcomed Ivan and Lennart to the community, and shortly glanced through the program of our kick-off meeting to get everybody on the same track. A short introduction round followed, after which we split the group of 7 in two (group 2a for social psychologists, group 2b for agent-based modellers), and discussed which steps we normally take to develop a model. After a fruitful discussion with the whole group again, we agreed to work together in the smaller groups, write up our ideas, and discuss them next meeting.
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Kick-off. Jun-2, 2023
The event was organized by the Energy Transition Lab of the TU Delft, with Lukas Schubotz, Mariëlle Rietkerk and Lynn de Jager coordinating the program. We started the day with some coffee and cookies, after which Dr. ir. Emile Chappin shared his views on the importance of integrating agent-based modelling and behavioral psychology to address energy transition complexities. The rest of the program was dedicated to networking and mapping our work with the aim of finding opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration.
Manifest
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CaterFly Manifest
CaterFly is a community that brings together early-stage researchers that work at the intersection of agent-based modelling and behavioral science. With the energy transition as our topic of interest. Next to battling the difficulties that arise with conducting interdisciplinary science, our aim is to learn from each other, sharpen our research together and enhance collaboration between starting researchers in this new and upcoming field.
The CaterFly community at TU Delft meets up regularly, both virtually and in person, to provide the space to anyone that is eager to share their work or is in need of academic support. CaterFly sessions are driven by its members as the organization relies on a rotating schedule of chairpersons and presenters. Parallel to the plenary sessions, several members of the community collaborate on side projects that result in collective output, for instance in the form of a paper.
Researchers studying energy behavior in agent-based models are encouraged to join the community and opportunities for collaboration are enthusiastically received. The establishment of local CaterFly hubs can be valuable for growing our network and strengthening cooperation across universities. Local hubs can be recognized as part of CaterFly if their vision statement aligns and occasional meetings with the TU Delft CaterFly community are organized in order to stay connected. CaterFly spin-offs are encouraged to collaborate on a common goal, for instance by co-organizing a conference workshop. Please contact Lukas Schubotz, Marielle Rietkerk, or Lynn de Jager for more information.