Invitation Workshop: Regulation And Decision-Making In Collectives

Collective phenomena are manifold and determine our daily life in various ways. At first glance, different phenomena such as human collective decision making, human crowd motility, bird and fish swarming, robotics at different size, cell movement in the epithelial layers of skin or gut, wound healing, collectives of bacteria or parasites, the assembly of DNA or proteins in supramolecular complexes or the evolution of order and diffusion in materials do not seem to have much in common. Despite the very different nature of these phenomena, however, comparable structures and patterns may underlie them, which may indicate, fundamental common regularities that are not yet fully understood. In this workshop, we will foster a transdisciplinary approach to address several general questions such as whether there are general concepts that can be identified in collectives all the way from molecules, to
cells, to robots to societies?

What can we learn from particular decisions and regulation-patterns that are not in line with our hypotheses and expectations? And does the aggregation level (individual vs. collective perspective) make a difference?

To address these kind of interdisciplinary questions in the context of molecular systems engineering and human decision making the Field of Focus 4 and the Flagship Engineering Molecular Systems are hosting the first workshop on “Regulation and Decision-Making in Collectives”. We would like to bring together researchers from seemingly very different fields, namely Engineering Molecular Systems, Behavioural and Cultural Studies, Economics and Social Sciences as well as Law to address these questions and to discuss points of contacts as well as potential joint projects.