Towards Equitable and Just Societies: Unravelling the Complexities

Systemic inequality renders life disproportionately challenging for disadvantaged individuals and groups. These inequalities permeate societies and institutions, characterised by intricate mechanisms of interaction. Addressing systemic inequality relies, in part, on effectively modelling it, describing its antecedents and outcomes, and identifying effective interventions. Applying a lens of complex systems to the study of inequality holds profound implications for enhancing societal and individual well-being. It has the potential to facilitate improved access to education, reduce income inequality, transform power dynamics, and mitigate the detrimental effects of discrimination, among others. By leveraging rich data on human interaction, complex systems approaches can be employed to examine the intricate processes that generate and perpetuate inequality. Numerous avenues exist for utilising complex systems to reduce inequality, including identifying vulnerable individuals and communities, discovering opportunities for network interventions, scrutinising power imbalances, and uncovering identity-based biases and under-representation across various domains (such as human mobility, public health, career advancement, political influence, and scientific collaboration, to name a few).

This satellite brings together researchers from different countries and backgrounds to discuss innovative research that employs complex systems methodologies to study social inequalities and structural biases. We welcome researchers who work on Complex Systems to present, for instance, how data can be used to unveil bias, analyse sociodemographic differences, model majority-minority behaviour, and propose solutions and interventions.

Inequality can arise from the structural and historical properties of interactions or individual attributes such as gender, race, age, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and ability, among others, which contribute to mechanisms of oppression. The United Nations recognizes the importance of such studies, as reflected in their alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG5 for Gender Equality and SDG10 for Reduction of Inequalities). This satellite session welcomes experts from diverse fields, including theoretical network science, agent-based models, anthropology, analytical social science, experimental psychology, fairness in computer science, complex systems, and computational social science. This collaborative effort aims to provide a holistic perspective on inequality and foster advancements in its combat.

 Works related to include, but are not limited to, the following:

We invite authors to submit the abstract using the following link

Please, access the same link to download the template.

Authors from underrepresented, marginalised, and/or disadvantaged groups are especially encouraged to apply. 

Important information: 

• To join the satellite, registration on the CCS2023 main conference is mandatory.

• Participants are allowed to register for more than one satellite event.

For more information, send an email to equalityandfairness@biocomplexlab.org

Institutions Involved