The first NetLogo user conference will be June 29 to July 1, 2026, in Chicago.
The conference’s purpose is to bring together the diverse communities of NetLogo users and agent-based modelers to share, learn, make connections, and have fun. It is intended for users and modelers in education, academic and applied research, art, and business; and to bring together beginners and experienced users. Information and links for conference registration and booking lodging will be updated at the conference web site: https://conference.netlogo.org/2026/
Events
We are planning the following conference events:
- Keynote speakers: Stay tuned for announcements on our keynote speakers who will give their experience and perspectives on agent-based modeling and NetLogo.
- Contributed presentations, posters, and demonstrations: Conference participants will present their work orally or in a poster/demonstration session. Additional information on presenting your work is below.
- Workshops: Optional small workshops will address topics such as:
- Developing and using educational curricula
- Designing scientific agent-based models
- Sensitivity analysis of models
- Testing NetLogo code
- Writing NetLogo extensions
- NetLogo and Geographic Information Systems
- NetLogo, agent-based modeling, and AI
- Creating NetTango models for education
- If you have not already, please fill out our planning survey to tell us what workshop topics interest you most.
- Tips and tricks sessions: NetLogo developers and users will present clever ways to do useful and impressive things in NetLogo. (Information on submitting tips and tricks is below.)
- New modeler forums: These sessions will provide beginning modelers with feedback and advice from experienced modelers. Selected new modelers will present work in progress and identify challenges they are struggling with. Attendees will discuss the problems and make suggestions for progress. (Information on participating is below.)
- NetLogo feedback and awards: The final session will provide attendees with the opportunity to make suggestion to and ask questions of the NetLogo development staff. We will also present informal awards in categories such as best presentations in education and research, coolest NetLogo art, and best tip or trick.
## Venue
The conference will be at the Student Center East building of the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) campus, at 750 South Halsted Street, Chicago. Low-cost dormitory lodging will be available at the nearby Academic and Residential Complex, 940 West Harrison Street (see next section).
This venue is a very close to public transportation and easy to reach by train from both Chicago airports. Chicago’s Greek Town and Little Italy neighborhoods are adjacent to campus, and the downtown Loop is just over a mile (~2 km) away.
Registration and lodging
Registration fees are not yet final, but we anticipate them being close to:
- Early registration (up to May 1):
- Standard: $450
- K-12 public school teachers and university students: $250
- Late registration (after May 1):
- Standard: $550.
- K-12 public school teachers and university students: $300
Participants wanting on-campus lodging will book it directly with the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) housing office. There will be several options ranging in cost from about $95 to $120 per night (including taxes), depending on how many people share bedrooms and bathrooms. Information on booking will be available on the conference web site when registration opens.
Due to University of Illinois Chicago campus rules, we cannot allow minors (under age 18) at the conference.
## Deadlines
Abstracts are due by March 2nd, 2026. We will aim to notify submitters by March 16th whether their abstract has been selected for presentation. We expect registration for the conference to begin around March 16th as well. Early registration will end May 1.
Presentation types
The NetLogo user conference is a place to share many kinds of work in many fields. All presentations should in some way address NetLogo (or related software such as NetTango), agent-based modeling, or modeling literacy. We encourage work related to education, scientific or commercial research, art, and other fields. We also welcome work that is not formal or mature enough for publication in the open literature.
The conference organizing committee will review the abstracts to select presentations for the available time slots. We are soliciting abstracts for four distinct types of presentation:
- Oral presentations will be made to the conference audience. Typical oral presentations will address how some specific problem in research or education was addressed using agent-based modeling or NetLogo. We anticipate two concurrent sessions of oral presentations on Monday and Wednesday, with each speaker having 15 minutes to present and 5 minutes for questions. Abstracts submitted for oral presentations may instead be accepted for poster/demonstration presentation.
- Poster/demonstration presentations should address the same topics as oral presentations, but in a poster session on Monday afternoon. Presenters can use a paper poster, a computer demonstration (on their own machine), or both.
- Tips and tricks presentations will be short (10 minutes, including questions) explanations and demonstrations of clever ways to program useful functions in NetLogo. These presentations will be made in a special session. If you have clever code that may be useful to others, a general way to solve a common NetLogo coding problem, or an extension that more people need to know about, show us!
- New modeler forum discussions will be presentations of work in progress, with the purpose of discussing specific unresolved challenges with more experienced modelers. We expect most presenters to be university students or other early career researchers, or educators inexperienced with modeling. Abstracts should identify the system and problem being modeled and the challenges that the presenter wants to discuss. We anticipate allocating ~30 minutes per participant, with 10 minutes of presentation and the rest of the time for discussion.
Optional submission to special journal issues
We have preliminary arrangements with two journals to publish work presented at this conference in special issues. The journals are Individual-Based Ecology (a new journal dedicated to individual- and agent-based approaches in biology and ecology; https://ibe.pensoft.net/) and the Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation (JASSS, an established on-line journal that has long served the NetLogo community; https://www.jasss.org/JASSS.html). Both journals are open-access and publication is free, though donations to JASSS are encouraged. To participate, indicate which journal you want your work to be considered for when you submit your abstract (below). If we have enough participation of sufficient quality, you will be invited (after the conference) to submit a full journal manuscript. These manuscripts will undergo the full peer review process and must meet the journals’ criteria to be accepted for publication. Accepted manuscripts from the conference will be published together.
Proposal/Abstract submission
Please submit your abstract(s) through the form at https://conference.netlogo.org/2026/. It will request the following:
- A presentation title.
- The type of session you prefer, from the those discussed above.
- Whether your proposal/abstract is more relevant to researchers, educators, or both.
- A short (<300 word) abstract briefly describing the question or problem you address, the model or methods you use, and (for oral and poster/demonstration presentations) key results and conclusions. For new modeler forums, identify the challenges you would like to discuss.
- Whether you wish your work to be considered for inclusion in a special issue of either Individual-Based Ecology or Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation (for oral presentations and posters only)
- Your name and a short biography. Please include your affiliation. If you are unaffiliated or the work you present is unrelated to your employment, you can say that.