VIEWS prediction challenge

Mentors:
Lead: Jonathan Williams (Stat, NCSU)
Collaborator: Gudmund Hermansen (Peace Research Institute, Oslo, Norway)

Intellectual merit and significance:
The Violence and Impacts Early-Warning System (VIEWS) is an open-source forecasting program at Uppsala University and Peace Research Institute Oslo [1]. This project will build models to forecast fatalities in state-based conflict throughout the globe. The primary data source is the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) georeferenced event dataset and candidate events dataset, all publicly available. Each year, the VIEWS program hosts a prediction challenge[2], where “the target is to forecast the number of fatalities in armed conflicts, in the form of the UCDP ‘best’ estimates, aggregated to the VIEWS units of analysis”.

Objectives:
As a team, students will build forecasting models to predict, and ultimately contribute to elucidating the dynamics of violence in state-based conflict intensity across the globe.

Outcomes:
Fatality forecasts for actual, ongoing state-based conflicts and a manuscript/publication describing the results of our participation in the competition.

References:
1. Hegre H, Allansson M, Basedau M, Colaresi M, Croicu M, Fjelde H, Hoyles F, Hultman L, Högbladh S, Jansen R, Mouhleb N, Muhammad S, Nilsson D, Nygård H, Olafsdottir G, Petrova K, Randahl D, Rød E, Schneider G, von Uexkull N, Vestby J. ViEWS: A political Violence Early Warning System. J Peace Res. 2019;56:155-74.
2. Hegre H, Vesco P, Colaresi M. Lessons from an Escalation Prediction Competition. Int Interact. 2022;48:521-554.