COMPliaNCE Computational approach that embeds Medical and Psychological research and develops Normative Criteria for socio-economic policy Evaluation

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Wilhelm Hofmann; Dr. Paola D' Orazio, Ph.D.; Professor Dr. Klaus Steigleder; Professor Dr. Eike Steinmann
• Subject Area: Statistics and Econometrics ; Practical Philosophy ; Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology ; Virology
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 458338078

Considering the challenges posed by the outbreak and spread of pandemics in modern economies and societies, and the evidence that the economic, social, psychological and health perspectives are tightly coupled, our proposed research project aims at studying the complexity of pandemics from an integrated multidisciplinary perspective. The core of this multidisciplinary project is to develop an agent-based computational model. Agent-based models are a common tool to analyze epidemics; moreover, it will allow us to combine different research areas' expertise and develop and explore the causal link among various factors. By including the medical perspective, the project will study the mechanisms according to which a disease spreads, predicts the future course, and evaluates strategies to control a pandemic's spread. Research in the psychological area will help model the social granularity and heterogeneity of the population, the complexity of the interactions and behavioral contagion, and herding that could work as amplifiers or dampeners in times of pandemics. Contributions from ethical research will provide insights into how values and ethical principles are embedded in policies and policymaking and their effects on decision-making. Finally, economic analysis will address the issues of the impact of pandemics on the economic dynamics of the Ruhr-area by considering different economic sectors, social and spatial clustering. The developed model will be used to study different socio-economic scenarios and the effectiveness of different policy mixes to tackle the pandemic and address economic recovery.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants