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From July 12^th to 16^th we attended the 13th International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software (iEMSs) at the University College Dublin (UCD).  This biannual conference brings together modelers and software developers from a wide range of disciplines, covering topics such as the integration of remote sensing into modelling, water quality modelling, uncertainty quantification, and good modelling practices. Sessions on actionable models for supporting decision-making were particularly relevant to our research in the POLISES group.

Birgit and Kaja also co-organized the session "Advancing socio-environmental models to support transformation towards sustainable agriculture" together with Veronika Gaube from BOKU (Vienna). We were delighted to welcome a diverse set of contributions, ranging from the impacts of value-added taxes on organic and conventional meat production in Germany to integrating discrete choice experiments into a telecoupled agent-based model. In addition, our colleague from OESA, Isabelle Halbhuber, presented a poster about quantifying the influence of agricultural land-use intensity for bumblebee colony development. The session fostered lively discussions, highlighting the breadth of approaches and shared interest in advancing socio-environmental modelling.

Further, Birgit presented our on-going work about leveraging large-language models for agent-based model documentation within the session “Much needed Good Modelling Practices and standards: are we getting there, and if so, how?”, organized by Maria Pierce, Serena Hamilton, Geerten Hengeveld and Volker Grimm. The audience was quite interested in the idea of using LLMs to support writing an ODD documentation and the discussion generated valuable ideas on how such AI-generated documentation could be validated.

Kaja presented her latest research on including distributive justice metrics in stylized models within the session “Integrating justice and equity into social-ecological modelling for sustainable future”, led by Ruediger Schaldach and Roman Hinz. She introduced one approach on how to explicitly account for distributive justice within model analysis and concluded with a broader call to integrate justice considerations into both model analysis and scenario development while making underlying justice assumptions more transparent.

Beyond the scientific programme, we also had the chance to experience a bit of Ireland. We spent an evening at the Cobblestone Pub, enjoying traditional Irish music, and explored the cliffs of Howth, where we were even lucky enough to spot a few seals.

Overall, the conference provided an inspiring mix of engaging scientific exchange, valuable feedback on our work, and opportunities to connect with colleagues from across the modelling community. We returned with fresh ideas, and plenty of motivation for the next steps in our research.