VU University Amsterdam is a large state-funded university with about 19,000 students and 2,000 academic staff. The university has 13 faculties, at which research in a wide variety of technical, natural and humanitarian disciplines is conducted. The high quality of research at VU University has been repeatedly recognized by visiting evaluation commissions. Currently, VU University is positioned at the fourth place in the ranking list of research institutions, which have been awarded grants from the European Research Council (ERC). Next to European grants, each year an increasing amount of national subsidies is awarded to research groups and individual researchers from VU University. Top scientists working at VU University have traditionally high citation indices.

Agent Systems Research Group

The Agent Systems Research Group is one of the three groups within the Artificial Intelligence Section of the Computer Science department, which according to the results of research assessments of previous years, is one of the three best groups among more than 50 groups pursuing research in the area of Computer and Information Science related subjects in the Netherlands. The group consists of about 15 researchers and investigates dedicated dynamic modelling methods, techniques and tools for modelling and analysis of (large-scale) agent systems. The members have gained an extensive experience with dynamic modelling and analysis of agent systems of different types and applied in different contexts. Some of the projects concerned different aspects of development and analysis of software agent systems (in particular, design and analysis of complex compositional multi-agent systems; agent-based brokering and negotiation systems). In other projects the agent paradigm integrated with dynamical system approaches have been used to model and analyse different structures and processes of the real world (in particular, adaptive cognitive processes, complex (non-steady state) intracellular dynamics (of E. coli) and adaptive dynamics of complex social structures, e.g. human organisations. Among the application areas of the projects are the following: logistics, incident and disaster management, naval missions, security, air traffic control, and crime investigation. The Agent Systems group has much experience with the development of both analytical dynamical modelling methods (e.g., based on calculus, mathematical logic, for example differential equations) and simulation-based methods, e.g., dynamical systems and their integration and unification. The current research focus of the group is on Ambient Intelligence applications, where the ambient software has knowledge about human behaviours and states and (re)act on these accordingly. For this class of applications agent-based and dynamical systems methods have been and are being developed. The group has a long tradition in pursuing multidisciplinary research.