Artificial Life has historically been regarded by its adversaries as an academic “hobby” with little application to real life. We believe that these days are past, as in fact, our interdisciplinary and constantly self-innovating discipline brings together a set of skills and perspectives with a unique potential to tackle some of the most pressing societal challenges of our times. Indeed, our complex systems analysis methodologies have application across a very broad range of domains and provide alternative tools to extract actionable insight than more traditional analysis methods. This special theme runs through the conference in the shape of keynote presentations and satellite events that apply Artificial Life principles to research on e.g. social dynamics, cultural evolution and societal learning, human behaviour, and smart cities
But more than merely themeing presentations, ALIFE2019 in Newcastle plans to revisit the very way academic conferences are run: a balanced amount of remote talks as well as broadcasting of presentations in order to reduce CO2 emissions, carbon-offset bursaries that allow participants to diminish their ecological footprint, locally sourced catering – these are just a few of the ideas that the organizers will explore, so that us academics can realize some of the change we are advocating for.
Community survey: As part of the conference organisation we have run a community survey to gauge the acceptance of various sustainability measures, both relating to local measures (e.g. catering options) as well as remote/virtual participation. The results of this survey have been published as part of the conference proceedings.
Our sustainability agenda: We will reflect on the success of our own measures in a lightning talk scheduled on Monday.
Continued discussions: Discussion on how this conference could serve as a demonstrator for future academic events and conferences will proceed as one of our break out activities.