Last Friday, the Z_GIS Spatial Simulation group had its first research retreat. The iDEAS:lab was a perfect location to achieve the goal of the day: to set aside our daily tasks and fully concentrate on the long-term group objectives.

We started off with exploring GitHub as our new central collaboration and outreach platform: https://github.com/ZGIS/spatial-simulation. Over the next weeks and months the platform will fill with tiny demo simulations as well as with complex, published models and teaching materials. Thanks Steffen Reichel for the GitHub intro! The afternoon was then reserved for peer-to-peer exchange about ongoing modelling research. The premise was not to impress with shiny presentations, but to invite diving deep into a colleague’s work in progress. “Cool – now, I finally understand what you are doing!” was the representative comment of one of the participants.

After a full day of hard work we went to Salzach beach to chat  over a cool drink about the real world and of course – modelling it!