Collective Behavior is the summary of the 2014 National Academies Keck Futures Initiative Conference on Collective Behavior. Participants were divided into fourteen interdisciplinary research teams. The teams spent nine hours over two days exploring diverse challenges at the interface of science, engineering, and medicine. The composition of the teams was intentionally diverse, to encourage the generation of new approaches by combining a range of different types of contributions. The teams included researchers from science, engineering, and medicine, as well as representatives from private and public funding agencies, universities, businesses, journals, and the science media. Researchers represented a wide range of experience — from postdoc to those well established in their careers — from a variety of disciplines that included science and engineering, medicine, physics, biology, economics, and behavioral science. The teams needed to address the challenge of communicating and working together from a diversity of expertise and perspectives as they attempted to solve a complicated, interdisciplinary problem in a relatively short time. This report highlights the presentations of the event and includes the team reports and pre-meeting materials.

Contents

• THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
• THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES KECK FUTURES INITIATIVE COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOR: FROM CELLS TO SOCIETIES STEERING COMMITTEE
• The National Academies Keck Futures Initiative
• Preface
• Conference Summary
  Nadia Drake, Science Journalist.
  • FROM ME TO WE: ADDING THE PARTS TOGETHER, PLUS SOME SECRET SAUCE
  • FROM ME TO ME
  • THE FOREST AND THE TREES
  • COORDINATION, FROM CELLS TO CYBORGS
  • IGNITING COOPERATION
  • A FRAGILE BALANCE
  • NETWORKED NETWORKS OF NETWORKS
  • THE $100,000,000 QUESTION
  • WHEN THINGS FALL APART
• 1. IDR Team Summary 1 Using our understanding of cooperation in cognitive organisms to understand cooperation in organisms or entities without brains and vice versa
  • CHALLENGE SUMMARY
  • IDR TEAM MEMBERS
  • IDR TEAM SUMMARY— GROUP 1
• 2. IDR Team Summary 2 How would you spend $100 million over the next five years to understand and harness the power of social networks?
  • CHALLENGE SUMMARY
  • IDR TEAM MEMBERS—GROUP A
  • IDR TEAM SUMMARY—GROUP 2A
  • IDR TEAM MEMBERS—GROUP B
  • IDR TEAM SUMMARY—GROUP 2B
• 3. IDR Team Summary 3 What proximate mechanisms underlie helping and cooperation?
  • CHALLENGE SUMMARY
  • IDR TEAM MEMBERS
  • IDR TEAM SUMMARY—GROUP 3
• 4. IDR Team Summary 4 Develop general principles to understand the interplay between individual variation and group function
  • CHALLENGE SUMMARY
  • IDR TEAM MEMBERS—GROUP A
  • IDR TEAM SUMMARY—GROUP 4A
  • IDR TEAM MEMBERS—GROUP B
  • IDR TEAM SUMMARY—GROUP 4B
• 5. IDR Team Summary 5 How do we solve the tragedy of the commons?
  • Challenge Summary
  • Key Questions
  • Reading
  • IDR TEAM MEMBERS
  • IDR TEAM SUMMARY—GROUP 5
• 6. IDR Team Summary 6 Are there fundamental principles underlying the transition from one to two individuals? Are these scalable to larger social groups?
  • CHALLENGE SUMMARY
  • IDR TEAM MEMBERS
  • IDR TEAM SUMMARY—GROUP 6
• 7. IDR Team Summary 7 Evaluate the degree to which cooperation and conflict need to be balanced in order to facilitate the evolution, expansion, optimal performance, and maintenance of collective behaviors
  • CHALLENGE SUMMARY
  • IDR TEAM MEMBERS—GROUP A
  • IDR TEAM SUMMARY—GROUP 7A
  • IDR TEAM MEMBERS—GROUP B
  • IDR TEAM SUMMARY—GROUP 7B
• 8. IDR Team Summary 8 From single cells to tissue: What causes organismality to emerge from individual cells, achieving control of conflict at lower levels so the organism becomes the unit of adaptation?
  • CHALLENGE SUMMARY
  • IDR TEAM MEMBERS—GROUP A
  • IDR TEAM SUMMARY—GROUP 8A
  • IDR TEAM MEMBERS—GROUP B
  • IDR TEAM SUMMARY—GROUP 8B
  • IDR TEAM MEMBERS—GROUP C
  • IDR TEAM SUMMARY—GROUP 8C
• 9. IDR Team Summary 9 How do general principles of cooperation and competition influence our understanding of brain networks?
  • CHALLENGE SUMMARY
  • IDR TEAM MEMBERS
  • IDR TEAM SUMMARY—GROUP 9
• Appendixes
  • List of Collective Behavior Preconference Tutorials
  • Agenda
  • Participant List

Funding for the activity that led to this publication was provided by the W. M. Keck Foundation. Based in Los Angeles, the W. M. Keck Foundation was established in 1954 by the late W. M. Keck, founder of the Superior Oil Company. In recent years, the Foundation has focused on Science and Engineering Research; Medical Research; Undergraduate Education; and Southern California. Each grant program invests in people and programs that are making a difference in the quality of life, now and for the future. For more information visit www.wmkeck.org.

NOTICE: The Interdisciplinary Research (IDR) team summaries in this publication are based on IDR team discussions during the National Academies Keck Futures Initiative Conference on Collective Behavior: From Cells to Society held at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center in Irvine, California, November 13-15, 2014. The discussions in these groups were summarized by the authors and reviewed by the members of each IDR team. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the IDR teams and do not necessarily reflect the view of the organizations or agencies that provided support for this project. For more information on the National Academies Keck Futures Initiative visit www.keckfutures.org.