Talking to Machines Synthetic Replication Games Workshop @ IMEBESS/EPSA
EPSA Prague 2026 Pre-Conference Event
Date: Wednesday, 8th July
Venue: Prague Congress Centre, Prague, Czech Republic
Format: Presentations + round table + hands-on programming workshop
Talking to Machines, Oxford is hosting a pre-IMEBESS/EPSA round table exploring the use of large language models as synthetic subjects in social science research.
Organized by Raymond Duch (University of Oxford), this IMEBESS/EPSA Prague 2026 pre-conference workshop brings together researchers exploring applications of Large Language Models (LLMs) in the social sciences.
Workshop Themes
The Oxford Talking to Machines (T2M) project has conducted a series of workshops over the past two-years exploring methods for incorporating large language models (LLMs) into how we conduct social science research. T2M is currently running a large-scale replication project, Synthetic Replication Game that explore the potential of LLMs to augment human samples in social science experiments. At the recent IMEBESS (Valencia) and EPSA (Madrid) meetings we organized pre-conference workshops bringing together scholars who shared the T2M interests in synthetic replications and incorporating LLMs into social science research.
Building on the success of these previous workshops, we will again organize a pre-conference workshop for the 2026 Prague meetings of the IMEBESS and the EPSA.
The LLM Workshop focus will be on the application of LLMs to research being conducted in the social sciences. The workshop will give particular attention to the evolving tools that we are using to leverage AI in social science research; to showcasing the innovative research designs that incorporate AI and the insights they have generated; to addressing the challenges of conducting cross-national research with AI tools. The Synthetic Replication Game (SRG) team of over 150 participants have made impressive advances in synthetically replicating human subjects in experiments – these will be highlighted at the workshop.
Previous workshops have covered many broad themes related to LLMs and social science and we expect to continue this tradition – themes such as: the role of AI agents as subjects in experiments; fine-tuning and RAG strategies; the role of LLMs in the analysis of conversations and open-ended survey responses; LLM guidance in the design of experimental protocols and treatment arms; technical advances including the incorporation of non-text data such as images, video and audio, transformer-based models, and DNNs; and the ethical challenges of incorporating LLMs into social science research; efforts to address safety and LLM model development and deployment. The workshop format offers presenters a unique opportunity to showcase their work and get constructive and thoughtful feedback.
The pre-conference workshop takes place Wednesday July 8th, a day before IMEBESS and EPSA Prague 2026. The workshop will be held in the same venue as the main meetings – the Prague Convention Center. We cannot provide travel or accommodation support for participants. For those who are accepted to participate, we will provide a workshop dinner on July 8th and lunch during the workshop.
Programme (draft)
Morning sessions:
- 09:00–10:30 — Talking to Machines presents findings from its year-long Synthetic Replication Games project.
- 11:00–12:30 — Round table with researchers from leading projects on synthetic experiments, discussing advances and future directions.
Afternoon session:
- 14:00–16:00 — Hands-on programming workshop using the Talking to Machines platform.
Who can attend
This event is open to registered delegates of either:
- IMEBESS 2026 Conference, or
- EPSA 2026 Annual Meeting
Participation in this workshop requires prior registration for the full EPSA or IMEBESS conference.
Practical Information
- When: Wednesday, 8 July 2026 (one day before EPSA Prague 2026).
- Where: Prague Congress Centre (same venue as the main meetings).
- Support: Travel and accommodation are not covered.
- Included: refreshments during the workshop.
- Application Deadline: 27 February 2026.
- Submission form: https://forms.office.com/e/q5176T8S9J
- Contact: For queries, please email melanie.sawers@nuffield.ox.ac.uk.