About Model Transfer

In science, models are transferable across different fields. The same model has been used to study the growth of cancer in medicine, the business cycle in economics, and preditor-prey interactions in biology. How is this possible? The ERC-funded MODEL TRANSFER will study such model transfers. It will provide a comprehensive philosophical investigation of the phenomenon, its challenges, and its implications for scientific progress by combining approaches from philosophy and the history of science with computational methods that are themselves new to philosophy. Overall, the project will develop and apply methodological and conceptual tools to study model transfer across scientific domains, focusing specifically on economics. It will also study in which way model transfer contributes to scientific progress.