The Cooperation Science Network
Bringing together cooperation scholars from across the disciplines
Cooperation Across Systems
Cooperation occurs at all levels of biological and social organization, from the genome to the General Assembly and everything in between: eukaryotic cells, multicellular organisms, microbiomes, social groups, corporations, societies, nations, and economies.
Cells
Cells can cooperate through producing public goods, protecting one another from threats and dividing labor.
Humans
Humans cooperate in many of the same ways that cells do, but also have the ability to communicate and innovate, allowing for cooperation in many domains.
Societies
Not only do humans cooperate among each other, but groups of humans also cooperate with other groups. Social, cultural and political institutions play an important role in cooperation at this level.
Activities
We sponsor research, scholarly meetings, educational events and outreach activities to bring together scholars and students interested in studying cooperation across systems.
Join scholars for a live discussion of cooperation theory classics
From Hamilton's work on kin selection to Ostrom's classic work on managing the commons, our Foundations of Cooperation Livestream brings modern cooperation researchers together to discuss new books and papers and the historical context and roots of their work. Join us on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter for livestreams and ask your questions in real time.
An interdisciplinary winter school
At the ASU Interdisciplinary Study of Cooperation Winter School, students discover the fundamental processes underlying cooperation in diverse systems. The lectures and seminars are taught by leading cooperation researchers from diverse disciplines including Psychology, Evolutionary Biology, Anthropology, Sociology and Computational Modeling. Through lectures, seminars and small tutorial sessions, students in the Winter School have the opportunity to learn from leading cooperation researchers, build new skills and develop projects.
Cooperation and Conflict Symposia
Answering the big questions in cooperation theory
The biannual Cooperation & Conflict Symposium hosted at ASU invites diverse scholars from around the world to come together to address the most pressing questions in cooperation theory through interdisciplinary dialogue. The first symposium was held in 2017 on the question How do large-scale systems solve the problem of detecting, controlling and eliminating cheating? The second was held in 2019, looking at how we tell Tell fact from Fiction in the Age of Information.
Cooperation in the Apocalypse
Research on Cooperation during the COVID-19 pandemic
The Cooperation Science Network supports the Cooperation in the Apocalypse research project, a major longitudinal study looking at cooperation, sharing and other positive social behaviors during crisis, focusing on the challenges and humans responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.
An educational and entertaining cooperation tour
The Apocalypse Roadshow is a traveling variety show about how to survive the apocalypse with cooperation, community and a sense of adventure. The Cooperation Science Network supports educational community events about the science of cooperation as part The Apocalypse Roadshow.
Participating Institutions
We hail from diverse department including anthropology, psychology, political science, biology and economics; and we use many different methods including fieldwork, studies with human subjects, computational modeling and more.
Arizona State University
This group, based at Arizona State University, was founded in 2017, and is a founding member institution of the Cooperation Science Network.
Rutgers University
This group, based at Rutgers University, was founded in 2017, and is a founding member institution of the Cooperation Science Network.
Publications
Publications from the Cooperation Science Network.
This cooperation primer was written by Cooperation Science Network co-Director Lee Cronk. This primer can easily be read in one sitting. It explains the things that sometimes prevent cooperation from happening and provides advice for how to overcome them. It is aimed at advanced high school students, college students, and anyone else who is interested in fostering cooperation in any setting.
Cooperation is ubiquitous across biological and social systems and is critical for the healthy functioning of those systems. Across these many systems, cooperation is underlain by a set of shared principles. Here we give an overview of those principles and describe diverse systems in which cooperation is manifested, from genomes to human groups to human-machine interactions. We also offer a universal language that can be used to talk about cooperation across systems and, thus, facilitate interdisciplinary research and collaborations. By creating a shared understanding and common language for cooperation science, we will be better able to identify and address key issues in the study of cooperation in each of the realms in which it occurs.
