Nanda

Wijermans

PhD

Researcher

nanda.wijermans@su.se

+46 8 674 78 28

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Profile summary

• Human decision-making and behaviour
• Collective action and common-pool resources
• Interdisciplinarity
• Knowledge integration & synthesis
• Social-ecological modelling
• Agent-based modelling

Nanda Wijermans studies group behaviour and collective action in sustainable resource use

Central to her work are collaborative research processes for which she uses agent-based modelling. These models enable the integration of knowledge and insights across several scientific domains and (empirical) approaches such as behavioural experiments, expert interviews, and observational findings.

Wijermans has a background in Artificial Intelligence/Cognitive Science (M.Sc.) and Social Simulation (PhD) obtained at the University of Groningen (NL). Throughout her postdoctoral research she extended her interdisciplinarity by situating human decision-making and behaviour in social-ecological systems.

In efforts to facilitate collaborations, discussions and new insights, Wijermans has helped establish a variety of interdisciplinary scientific collaboration processes connected to her own projects as well as in the Social Simulation community.

She actively pursues this bridging function in her position as an elected member on the Management Committee of the European Social Simulation Association (ESSA) as well as an elected member of the Network for Computational Modeling in Social and Ecological Sciences (ComSES Net) and as member of the Editorial board of the Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation.

One of the most recent research frontiers she focuses on concerns co-leading a network on Social Identity Approach in agent-based Models (SIAM) to advance the behavioural realism in simulation models and the theoretical advancement in the social sciences on the why and how questions concerning situated behaviour dynamics.

Current research projects

  • AgentEx (PI): Climate change from the small-scale fisher’s point of view: Identifying critical multi-level processes for sustainable small-scale fisheries (combining agent-based modelling and behavioural experiments).
  • Norms@risk: Do social norms help dealing with collective threats? (combining agent-based modelling and behavioural experiments

Current funding

  • FORMAS Future research leader grant
  • The Swedish Research Council Grants for research on societal security

Key publications

Wijermans, N., Schill, C., Lindahl, T., & Schlüter, M. (2022). Combining approaches: Looking behind the scenes of integrating multiple types of evidence from controlled behavioural experiments through agent-based modelling. International Journal of Social Research Methodology. DOI: 10.1080/13645579.2022.2050120.

Wijermans, N., Boonstra, W.J., Orach, K., Hentati-Sundberg, J. & Schlüter, M. (2020). Behavioural diversity in fishing - Towards a next generation of fishery models. Fish and Fisheries, 274(2), 872-890. https://doi.org/10.1111/faf.12466

Schill, C., Wijermans, N., Schlüter, M. & Lindahl, T. (2016). Cooperation Is Not Enough—Exploring Social-Ecological Micro-Foundations for Sustainable Common-Pool Resource Use. PLoS ONE, 11(8), e0157796–24. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0157796

Waldherr, A. & Wijermans, N. (2013). Communicating Social Simulation Models to Sceptical Minds. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 16(4). http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/16/4/13.html

Wijermans, N., Jorna, R., Jager, W., van Vliet, T. & Adang, O. M. J. (2013). CROSS: modelling crowd behaviour with social-cognitive agents. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 16(4). http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/16/4/1.html

Publications by Wijermans, Nanda

An Online Implementation of a Virtual Agent-Based Experiment Tool—An Exploration

Book chapter | 2021

Wijermans, N., Verhagen, H. & Lytter, A. 2021. An Online Implementation of a Virtual Agent-Based Experiment Tool—An Exploration. In Advances in Social Simulation (eds. P. Ahrweiler & M. Neumann), Springer Proceedings in Complexity, Springer International Publishing, pp.291–297.

This chapter is part of a book based on the conference proceedings of ESSA 2013, the 9th Conference of the European Social Simulation Association. ESSA conferences constitute annual events, which serve as an international platform for the exchange of ideas and discussion of cutting-edge research in the field of social simulations, both from the theoretical as well as applied perspective. This book consists of 33 articles, whic...

Social Identity in Agent-Based Models: Exploring the State of the Art

Book chapter | 2021

Scholz, G., Eberhard, T., Ostrowski, R. & Wijermans, N. 2021. Social Identity in Agent-Based Models: Exploring the State of the Art. In Springer Proceedings in Complexity, pp. 59–64.

Agent-based modelling

Book chapter | 2021

Schlüter, M., Lindkvist, E., Wijermans, N. & Polhill, G. 2021. Agent-based modelling. In: Biggs et al. (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods for Social-Ecological Systems, Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 383–397.

This chapter is part of The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods for Social-Ecological Systems which provides a synthetic guide to the range of methods that can be employed in social-ecological systems (SES) research. The book is primarily targeted at graduate students, lecturers and researchers working on SES, and has been written in a style that is accessible to readers entering the field from a variety of different disci...

Cognition and behavior in context: a framework and theories to explain natural resource use decisions in social-ecological systems

Journal / article | 2021

Constantino, S., Schlüter, M., Weber, E., Wijermans, N.. 2021. Cognition and behavior in context: a framework and theories to explain natural resource use decisions in social-ecological systems. Sustainability Science. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11625-021-00989-w

The complex, context-dependent, and dynamic nature of human behavior is increasingly recognized as both an important cause of sustainability problems and potential leverage for their solution. Human beings are diverse, as are the social, ecological, and institutional settings in which they are embedded. Despite this recognition and extensive knowledge about human decision-making in the behavioral sciences, empirical analysis,...