In February 2003, the UCSB Social Science Survey Center conducted a survey of applicants to CSISS programs for years 2000 – 2002. The objectives of the survey were to ascertain: (1) the extent to which spatial analysis and spatial thinking have developed in the social sciences in recent years; (2) the perceived needs of researchers in the social science community; and (3) the success of CSISS programs in building infrastructure for the dissemination of spatial thinking in thesocial sciences. The survey attempted to reach all individuals who applied to participate in CSISS workshops and specialist meetings (741) during the first three years of the Center’s operations.

This meeting brought together researchers on spatial and social interactions in the economics profession with researchers in geography and related fields to explore developments in geographic information science (GIS) and in new spatial econometric tools for possible uses for economic investigations of social interactions.

This meeting gathered social scientists from diverse disciplines to share insights and questions regarding the role of space in their respective research areas, as well as the possibilities of strengthening and integrating research on inequality/equity issues through the spatial perspective.

The specialist meeting on spatial externalites took place in Santa Barbara in January 2001. This statement outlines the key issues facing the introduction of spatial methodlogies in economics and presents the objectives of the meeting for invited participants to consider.

Spatial Social Science recognizes the key role that spatial concepts, such as distance, location, proximity, neighborhood, and region play in human society; promotes research that advances the understanding of spatial patterns and processes; and invokes powerful principles of spatial thinking.

The strategic plan for national dissemination of spatial analysis across social science disciplines featured programs for training spatial social scientists, publications demonstrating application of spatial thinking in different disciplines, and the development of new spatial analytic tools for processing geo-referenced information.

A workshop on Agent-based Models of Land Use / Land Cover Change in Santa Barbara (hosted by CSISS) took place prior to and in conjunction with the National Academy of Sciences’ Arthur M. Sackler Colloquium on Adaptive Agents, Intelligence and Emergent Human Organization: Capturing Complexity through Agent-Based Modeling. This took place at the Beckman Center, Irvine, California, 6-7 October 2001. This document features the schedule, summary of proceedings, and Position Papers by participants in the workshop.