Irish researchers win prestigious international award for Covid-19 computer simulation model
A team of researchers from the Insight Research Ireland Centre for Data Analytics has been awarded the prestigious Jay Wright Forrester Award for the best contribution to the field of system dynamics during the Covid-19 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic.
A paper entitled An age-cohort simulation model for generating Covid-19 scenarios: A study from Ireland’s pandemic response, published in the European Journal of Operational Research in February 2024, arose from Insight’s work with the Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group (IEMAG), created in March 2020 to advise the government of Ireland’s response to the pandemic.
The work helped to identify policies to control the spread of the virus and limit its impact on public health in Ireland, and demonstrated how system dynamics – a computer-aided approach for strategy and policy design – can be applied to public health and pandemic response.
Insight researchers Prof James P Gleeson from University of Limerick; Prof Jim Duggan from University of Galway (pictured); and Prof Brendan Murphy from University College Dublin co-authored the paper with colleagues Dr Jair Andrade, Prof Cathal Walsh and Prof Philip Nolan. The paper described a computer simulation model developed to generate disease incidence projections, and to inform policy analysis in Ireland.
SARS-CoV-2 was a novel pathogen and conditions changed rapidly as the virus mutated. The modelling team responded to rapidly changing data from the HSE, augmenting the model as virus characteristics and vaccination rollout changed.
The work, according to the Systems Dynamics Society, represented “an outstanding application of system dynamics” and continues to influence the Health Service Executive’s public health governance.
“We are delighted to receive the Jay W. Forrester Award for our modelling contribution to Ireland’s pandemic response,” said Prof Duggan. “We also acknowledge the key role the Insight Centre for Data Analytics played in supporting our research, as the Centre provided an outstanding environment for interdisciplinary collaboration, and these interactions between different scientific fields greatly benefited our model building work within IEMAG.”
The US-based Systems Dynamics Society was established in 1983 to promote the development and use of system dynamics modelling, a powerful tool for understanding complex systems and solving real-world problems.
TechCentral Reporters
Subscribers 0
Fans 0
Followers 0
Followers