Spatiotemporal Causal Analysis (#STCausal2025)
Category: Half day workshop (Afternoon)
Organizers:
- Martin Tomko, The University of Melbourne
- Cecile de Bezenac, The Alan Turing Institute, University of Leeds/ Centre Borelli, ENS Paris-Saclay
- Grant McKenzie, McGill University
Website: stcausal2025.spatial-causal.org
Description
Causal analysis, including causal discovery, causal inference and causal representation learning, is fundamental to understanding the behaviors of a natural and societal system, and for our ability to intervene into the outcomes of such systems. The majority of spatial sciences and spatial statistical research has, for a long time, remained at the level of describing, or predicting (forecasting) outcomes of spatial processes and systems, but has shied away from making causal claims, and therefore also from efforts to design causally-informed interventions. Recent advances in causal analysis make strong assumptions about I.I.D data, fundamentally violated in spatial processes.
We invite researchers interested in the ability to make causal claims based on analyses in spatial disciplines incl. Earth science, epidemiology, transportation, urban planning, and economics, interested in forming a shared conceptual, terminological, and methodological understanding of spatial causal analysis and methods to communicate outcomes of causal analysis to the public to a seminar at GIScience 2025.
This workshop is a part of a concerted effort triggered by a Dagstuhl Seminar on Causal Inference for Spatial Data Analytics in 2024 to build a community meeting along with selected geospatial, computational, and statistical conferences to reach the disparate communities and individuals contributing to spatial causal research. According to literature, there is still a lack of research in causal inference.
We invite participants to lodge brief, max two page position statements to address the above topics in spatial causal analysis, as a starting point to a discussion that will result in an effort to synthesize, and articulate a joint position/vision paper.
Further information and submission criteria are available on the workshop website: stcausal2025.spatial-causal.org.
