On 6-7 December, VIEWS Director Håvard Hegre co-led a workshop for the Stability and Change project on “Prediction with Uncertainty.” The workshop was funded by the Centre for Advance Study (CAS) and hosted by the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).
At the workshop, Håvard discussed the soon-to-be-announced prediction competition. This competition will invite contributors to predict the number of fatalities in armed conflict with an emphasis on estimating the uncertainty of their predictions. We will announce more details on the prediction competition soon.
Paola Vesco presented on the uncertainty in predictions and raised the question: how do we measure uncertainty in conflict events? In her presentation, she explained various challenges forecasting faces and potential ways to assess the impact of these uncertainties.
Mihai Croicu discussed how known geographic imprecision (KGI) affects the spatial certainty of predictions and presented a method for addressing these uncertainties. Mihai’s method will be further outlined in a soon-published working paper.
David Randhal presented on parametric and non-parametric measures of uncertainty. Here, he explained the various methods that can be used to create prediction intervals that are appropriately accurate. He further explained that both parametric and non-parametric approaches show great promise.
VIEWS members Chandler Williams, Jim Dale, Malika Rakhmankulova, Natalie Strom, and Sofia Nordenving were also in attendance.
