Agent-based models are the perfect method to make sense of wicked problems. Moreover, modeling is fun and you gain a lot of understanding when you have to model a complex system as it requires making the underlying processes explicit. The theses of my PhD students Mart van der Kam and Alexander van der Vooren (see pictures) provide some excellent examples!
In NEON, the models we will build together are not only an outcome, they are also a tool to communicate with researchers from other disciplines connecting engineering and social sciences, and to communicate with stakeholders from society.
Innovative about NEON is that we address the governance challenges that arise from upscaling renewables at the same time as the technical challenges. Here the biggest governance challenge I see is to not only enable and accelerate the transition but to do this in a fair and inclusive way.
The integral model (link) that I work on with Auke Hoekstra and Maarten Steinbuch, needs input from all the other work packages to make it’s scenarios better.