Coordinating towards a common good
Francisco C. Santos,
INESC-ID Lisboa and IST –
Abstract:
Throughout their life, humans often engage in cooperative endeavors ranging from family related issues to global warming. In all cases, the tragedy of the commons threatens the possibility of reaching the optimal solution associated with global cooperation, a scenario predicted by theory and demonstrated by many experiments. Using the toolbox of evolutionary game theory, I will first address several mechanisms that are able to efficiently promote cooperation. Next, I will discuss an evolutionary and/or social learning dynamics approach to a broad class of cooperation problems in which attempting to minimize future losses turns the risk of failure into a central issue in individual decisions. We find that decisions within small groups under high risk and stringent requirements to success significantly raise the chances of coordinating actions and escaping the tragedy of the commons. We also offer insights on the scale at which public goods problems of cooperation are best solved. Instead of large-scale endeavors involving most of the population, which as we argue, may be counterproductive to achieve cooperation, the joint combination of local agreements within groups that are smaller than the population at risk is prone to significantly raise the probability of success. In addition, our model predicts that, if one takes into consideration that groups of different sizes are interwoven in complex networks of contacts, the chances for global coordination in an overall cooperating state are further enhanced.
Date: 2012-Feb-22 Time: 11:00:00 Room: 04
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Upcoming Events
INESC Brussels HUB Winter Meeting 2023

This edition of the HUB Winter Meeting will be co-organised with Science Business and will take place on the 30 and 31 January, in Lisbon, at Instituto Superior Técnico, Department of Computer Science and Engineering.
Please see below a summary of the agenda, this will be updated on the INESC Brussels HUB website regularly (confirmed speakers and other relevant info). Places for onsite participation are limited so registration is mandatory. Online participants will be sent a ZOOM link for each specific session on the 27th January.
INESC Brussels HUB website: https://hub.inesc.pt/
Monday, 30 January
a) Digital Europe Programme & Chips Act: state of play and possibilities for INESC.
9h to 10h30 GMT
(Exclusive for INESC researchers and administrators).
b) Science Business: how can INESC tap into Science Business network, activities and communications tools.
(Exclusive for INESC researchers and administrators).
c) Networking Lunch (for all onsite participants).
d) Roundtable: From rhetoric to reality – Embedding international strategy in the DNA of research organisations.
(Closed-door, roundtable workshop, Chatham House rules, open to INESC researchers and administrators, external participants by invitation only).
e) Networking Dinner
(By invitation only – INESC researchers participating onsite in the event are elegible to join).
Tuesday, 31 January
f) Workshop: How they did it? Strategic positioning for structural success in Horizon Europe: a discussion of best practices.
(Exclusive for INESC researchers, administrators and international invited speakers).
g) The public consultation on European R&I Programmes: Towards FP10.
(Closed-door, roundtable workshop, Chatham House rules, open to INESC researchers and administrators, external participants by invitation only).
h) Networking Lunch (for all onsite participants).
i) Management Committee meeting (Directors and POB members)
The HUB Winter Meeting aims at bringing together researchers and administrators from the 5 INESC institutes, affiliated higher education institutions in Portugal and abroad, with key European and global players, to:
– Discuss key research and innovation issues at EU level.
– Inform institutional policy and strategy.
– Exchange best-practices about R&I management, career development and policy positioning.
– Promote, discuss and deliver vision, visibility, networking and impactful communication.
– Create, identify and deepen partnerships and collaboration opportunities for collaborative R&I.