The Games are over! Game theory will always be relevant! St Petersburg University holds the 17th International Conference on Game Theory and Management
The 17th International Conference on Game Theory and Management (GTM2024) has come to an end at St Petersburg University. For 17 consecutive years, this major academic event brought together leading Russian and international researchers studying mathematical models of decision-making in conflict situations. This year, the conference was dedicated to the 300th anniversary of St Petersburg University.
About 100 scholars from eight countries and six regions of the Russia Federation submitted 61 papers for participation in the conference. The International Scientific Committee selected 60 sectional and four plenary papers. Of the authors of the selected papers, 69 researchers participated in the conference, including 26 scholars representing eight countries: Hong Kong; India; Italy; China; the United Arab Emirates; Senegal; Uzbekistan; and France.
Opening the conference, Professor Leon Petrosyan, Head of the Department of Mathematical Game Theory and Statistical Decisions and Dean of the Faculty of Applied Mathematics and Control Processes at St Petersburg University, highlighted the role of the University in the creation of game theory.
In our country, game theory was studied and developed at St Petersburg University (Leningrad State University). The founder of this area of study at the University was Professor Nikolai Vorobyov.
Professor Leon Petrosyan, Head of the Department of Mathematical Game Theory and Statistical Decisions and Dean of the Faculty of Applied Mathematics and Control Processes at St Petersburg University
"Professor Vorobyov was a research supervisor of a large number of researchers across the Soviet Union and the socialist countries, and my teacher as well. He taught a whole galaxy of experts in game theory. St Petersburg University has therefore a very strong team of game theorists. Apart from accomplished professionals, many courses are taught by early-career Professors, Doctors of Physics and Mathematics who specialise in this area," said Leon Petrosyan.
Despite the high level of formalisation, game theory has always been an applied science that studies various aspects of strategic decision-making in conflict situations. According to Nikolai Zenkevich, Acting Head of the Department of Information Technology in Management and the Department of Operations Management at St Petersburg University, in game theory, the object of research may well be a real practical challenge. "Game theory can be applied in business, politics and other areas of decision-making. Using the game theory framework for modelling scenarios among competing parties, we try to find a rational solution to various conflict situations, taking into account the object and subject of the research," added Nikolai Zenkevich.
Four leading experts in game theory and its applications in management spoke at the Conference on Game Theory and Management this year: Joseph Abdou, Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Informatics at the University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne; Lina Mallozzi, Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Applications at the University of Naples Federico II; Elena Parilina, Professor in the Department of Mathematical Game Theory and Statistical Decisions at St Petersburg University; and Puduru Viswanadha Reddy, Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.
"The conference organising committee has always managed to cover almost all aspects of game theory. In this respect, the Conference on Game Theory and Management is one of the best conferences on the subject in the world,’ said Lina Mallozzi. ‘In my presentation, I focused on rational and optimal planning; in particular, in the context of selecting a site for school construction. In such projects, it is important to consider not only the geographical location, but also the interests of the population, which may not coincide. I used the concept of the Monge-Kantorovich Transportation Problem to calculate the optimal allocation of students to schools, although ideal conditions exist only in the mathematical world."
The conference highlighted the continued relevance of game theory owing to its applications in computer science, including data science and artificial intelligence. Joseph Abdou, Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Informatics at the University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, is confident that the technical aspect of game theory will become extremely important in future, surpassing the conceptual part of game theory. Nonetheless, in his presentation, Professor Abdou focused on the mathematical basis of politics, seeking to find common ground in the face of conflicting views.
'St Petersburg is a place where this area of study is very popular. It is here that a huge amount of game theory research is carried out. When I began to study game theory, there were only a few people in the USSR who, like me, were fascinated by this subject. Later, I met Leon Petrosyan, who made outstanding discoveries in game theory. Unlike many other similar events, the Conference on Game Theory and Management is more "personal" — no one here avoids direct contacts. Usually at engineering conferences, there are a lot of concurrent sessions and the presentations are limited to 15–18 minutes, which is very little time to report the research findings in detail. Whereas at the conference organised by St Petersburg University, each speaker at a sectional meeting is given half an hour. This gives much more opportunities and room for the speaker to interact with the audience. I think this is very helpful, especially for early-career researchers who are in the initial stages of their study,' shared Puduru Viswanadha Reddy, Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.
The 18th International Conference on Game Theory and Management is planned to be held in an expanded format in early July 2025 in St Petersburg on the campus of St Petersburg University. It will be a large-scale international academic conference "MOTOR GTM", gathering participants of two traditionally separate conferences: MOTOR (Conference on Mathematical Optimisation Theory and Operations Research) and GTM (Conference on Game Theory and Management). In other words, MOTOR GTM will bring together experts in Management Science and Management.
In her presentation, Elena Parilina, Professor in the Department of Mathematical Game Theory and Statistical Decisions at St Petersburg University, addressed the issues of sustainable cooperation and prevention of parties’ deviations from contract terms. "It is of the utmost importance that we take into consideration the strength of each player and ensure their loyalty with financial incentives in order to maintain cooperation. My research findings prove that allocating additional funds to strong players helps to maximise sustainable cooperation in long-term projects, both in public and private partnerships," said Elena Parilina.
Based on the results of the GTM2024 conference, a collective monograph is planned to be published by Birkhäuser (Springer) Publishers. Also, the programme committee of GTM2024 made a decision to publish Volume 18 of the journal Contributions to Game Theory and Management in 2024.