The Network Science Institute (NetSI) is delighted to announce that the NetSI team at Northeastern University London has been awarded a grant from the Leverhulme Trust for the project "Rethinking Epidemic Models: Integrating Human Behaviour and Psychology."

The grant, with a total budget of £353,312 (of which £250,000 is awarded to Northeastern University London), will fund a multi-institutional research effort led by Prof. István Kiss (Northeastern University London, Principal Investigator) alongside Prof. Andreia Sofia Teixeira (Northeastern University London, Co-Principal Investigator), who will lead the project's agent-based modeling platform.

About the project

‍Epidemic outbreaks are shaped as much by the biology of the pathogen as by human behavior, for example when we decide to wash hands, self-isolate, or to get vaccinated. Conventional epidemic models, however, tend to treat individuals as independent, rational beings acting on cost-benefit calculations. The COVID-19 pandemic proved that not to be the case, as communities receiving the same public health messaging often responded in very different ways.

This project sets out to design a new class of epidemic models informed by current thinking in social and health psychology, according to which people's choices about health and safety are shaped less by individual calculation and more by the groups they identify with, such as families, communities, professional circles, and the behavioral norms those groups carry. To capture this, the researchers will build an agent-based simulation environment that treats the spread of information and the influence of group identity as two distinct mechanisms, allowing each to be studied and modeled on its own terms. The intended outcome is a modeling approach that better reflects real-world epidemic dynamics and provides public health agencies and policy makers with a deeper understanding of people as members of social groups, not just isolated decision-makers.

The team

‍The project brings together an interdisciplinary team spanning network science, epidemiology, and psychology:

• Prof. István Kiss (NetSI, Northeastern University London) — Principal Investigator
• Prof. Andreia Sofia Teixeira (NetSI, Northeastern University London) — Co-Investigator, leading the agent-based modeling platform
• Prof. John Drury (University of Sussex) — expertise in social identity and collective behaviour
• Dr. Marijn Stok (Utrecht University / RIVM) — expertise in health psychology

The team will also be supported by a postdoctoral research associate (PDRA) based at Northeastern University London and a PhD student based at the University of Sussex.

About the Leverhulme Trust

‍Established in 1925 following a bequest from William Hesketh Lever, the first Viscount Leverhulme, the Leverhulme Trust supports research and education across all academic disciplines. It is one of the largest providers of research funding in the UK, dispensing over £100 million a year. In assessing proposals, the Trust's trustees prioritize originality, importance, significance beyond a single discipline, and the merit of the research design and team. More information about the Trust and its funding schemes is available at leverhulme.ac.uk.

Join the team

‍As part of this project, Northeastern University London will be advertising a postdoctoral research position this Fall. This is a fantastic opportunity for researchers interested in working at the intersection of network science, epidemiology, and social psychology. Further details on the call will be announced in the coming months.

This project is funded by the Leverhulme Trust. The grant has been awarded to Northeastern University London.

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