Research

Areas of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. Testing Validation and Verification

• Verification and validation: Advanced software testing techniques capable of handling highly nondeterministic high scale simulation systems in which the oracle is unknowable
• Verification techniques able to confirm, or refute with counterexamples, infrastructural simulation faithfulness to real infrastructure at scale in the presence of non-determinism from both infrastructure and real use of behaviour
• Simulation-specific approaches to validation of user and community behaviours

2. Scalability: Cyber-Cyber Digital Twin Scalability, Prediction, and Optimisation

• Techniques for balancing the trade-off between cyber-cyber digital twin speed and fidelity
• Techniques for predicting user and community behaviours in the presence of counterfactuals
• Techniques for optimising the performance of cyber-cyber digital twins

3. Behaviour: Modeling User Behaviours and Counter-Factual Interventions

• Techniques for modelling and predicting typical user and community behaviours in (possibly counter-factual perturbations of) complex multi-agent emergent systems
• Techniques for simulating large numbers of counterfactual interventions and their influence on using community behaviours

Proposals should include

• A summary of the project (1-2 pages), in English, explaining the area of focus, a description of techniques, any relevant prior work, and a timeline with milestones and expected outcomes
• A draft budget description (1 page) including an approximate cost of the award and explanation of how funds would be spent
• Curriculum Vitae for all project participants
• Organization details; this will include tax information and administrative contact details

Eligibility

• Proposals must comply with applicable U.S. and international laws, regulations, and policies.
• Applicants must be current full-time faculty at an accredited academic institution that awards research degrees to PhD students.
• Applicants must be the Principal Investigator on any resulting award.
• Facebook cannot consider proposals submitted, prepared or to be carried out by individuals residing in, or affiliated with an academic institution located in, a country or territory subject to comprehensive U.S. trade sanctions.
• Government officials (excluding faculty and staff of public universities, to the extent they may be considered government officials), political figures, and politically affiliated businesses (all as determined by Facebook in its sole discretion) are not eligible.

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• Facebook is authorized to evaluate proposals submitted under its RFPs, to consult with outside experts, as needed, in evaluating proposals, and to grant or deny awards using criteria determined by Facebook to be appropriate and at Facebook’s sole discretion. Facebook’s decisions will be final in all matters relating to its RFPs, and applicants agree not to challenge any such decisions.
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• Personal data submitted with a proposal, including name, mailing address, phone number, and email address of the applicant and other named researchers in the proposal may be collected, processed, stored and otherwise used by Facebook for the purposes of administering Facebook’s RFP website, evaluating the contents of the proposal, and as otherwise provided under Facebook’s Privacy Policy.
• Neither Facebook nor the applicant is obligated to enter into a business transaction as a result of the proposal submission. Facebook is under no obligation to review or consider the proposal.
• Feedback provided in a proposal regarding Facebook products or services will not be treated as confidential or protected by copyright, and Facebook is free to use such feedback on an unrestricted basis with no compensation to the applicant. The submission of a proposal will not result in the transfer of ownership of any IP rights.
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• Awards granted in connection with RFP proposals will be subject to terms and conditions contained in the unrestricted gift agreement (or, in some cases, other mechanisms) pursuant to which the award funding will be provided. Applicants understand and acknowledge that they will need to agree to these terms and conditions to receive an award.