Using case-based systems mapping for policy evaluation: A case study using policy data on urban planning

 

At ICCS this year (24th International Conference on Computational Science), which was in Malaga Spain, Mike Lees, Roland Bouffanais and I ran our Second Workshop on Computational Diplomacy and Policy (CodiP).

 

A QUICK SUMMARY OF CodiP

Our (quickly becoming) annual workshop provides a platform for scientists and policy makers to share and discuss the latest developments in the multidisciplinary areas at the intersection between computational science, international relations, policy and governance.

 

Following the successful launch of the inaugural CodiP workshop during ICCS 2023, this second edition builds on the solid foundation laid previously in applying computational techniques, and in particular computational modeling, to address decision-making challenges in policy and diplomacy, including the latest developments in AI and modelling software that supports or stands in for real-time decision making. This upcoming workshop is designed to delve deeper into the subject matter with an emphasis on state-of-the-art methods.

 

This second edition is co-organized by the Universities of Amsterdam, Geneva, and Durham. At Amsterdam, the POLDER initiative is developing co-created research and new educational programmes around complexity, policy and social systems. The University of Geneva, through the SiDLab is building a new group around computational diplomacy. The University of Durham, through the Durham Research Methods Centre is working with scholars and non-academic partners to develop interdisciplinary methods training and research. The second edition of this annual workshop will provide a platform for scientists and policy makers to share and discuss the latest developments in these emerging areas.

 

MY PRESENTATION:

Using case-based systems mapping for policy evaluation:

A case study using policy data on urban planning

Lasse Gerrits and I recently published The Atlas of Social Complexity. The Atlas is a cartography of social complexity’s future, charting the leading-edge transformations taking place across six major transdisciplinary themes and over twenty-four research topics. Grounded in a social complexity imagination, which gets back to the importance of social science, the environment, our embodied minds, and real-world impact, these transformations constitute a new social science turn in complexity studies. Themes range from cognition, emotion and consciousness to the dynamics of human psychology to living in social systems to advancing a new methods agenda. Topics range from immune system cognition and network theories of psychopathology to configurational and intersectional social science to the complexities of place and governance to resilience and economics in an unstable world. For those looking to get past the normalising conventions of the complexity sciences (particularly postgraduate students and early career researchers) in search of new ideas and new ways of working, this is the tour you’re looking for.

In the book, we devote an entire theme to the latest developments in multi-methods (including qualitative) for exploring social complexity. Two key developments are case-based configurational methods and systems mapping. 

Based on these developments, my colleagues and I have developed COMPLEX-IT, an R-shiny, online case-based, computational, multi-methods approach to systems mapping for helping policy evaluators engage their data, including qualitative data. For non-numeric data this approach employs a Fuzzy-set algebraic approach that converts qualitative policy evaluation data into a format that can then be modelled. Be it numeric or Boolean, our approach uses a suite of tools, including machine learning, k-means cluster analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis, to produce an immediate ‘systems map’ for exploration. The systems map is generated using zero-order correlations and can be explored using several network mapping tools, including in-degree/out-degree, ego-network analysis, etc. It can also be modified, or added to, to explore barriers or levers to change, and used in the standard manner of most systems mapping exercises. To demonstrate the value of our approach, we use policy data on urban planning from several European cities.

 

Here is a link to COMPLEX-IT

 

Here is a link to our new book, The Atlas of Social Complexity