Geoffrey Nigel Gilbert (born 21 March 1950) is a British sociologist and a pioneer in the use of agent-based models in the social sciences.

A Cambridge engineering graduate (Emmanuel College), he turned to the sociology of scientific knowledge for his PhD under the direction of Michael Mulkay.

[3] At the University of Surrey he founded the Social and Computer Sciences research group in 1984 with a grant from the Alvey Programme.

[13] Nigel Gilbert is one of the founders of modern computational sociology, a discipline that merges social science research with simulation techniques with the goal of modelling complex policy issues and fundamental aspects of human societies.

[14] While this was only moderately successful, it led him to organise in 1992 the first of an influential series of workshops on 'Simulating Societies’ [15] [16] Later he established: In 1997, CRESS received funding from the FAIR programme of the European Commission for a project called IMAGES: Improving agri-environmental policies–a simulation approach to the role of the cognitive properties of farmers and institutions (1997–2000).

[35] The Centre, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and the Natural Environment Research Council with the support of DECC, DEFRA, the Environment Agency and the Food Standards Agency, pioneers, tests and promotes innovative evaluation approaches and methods across nexus problem domains, such as biofuel production or climate change, where food, energy, water and environmental issues intersect.

He founded a spin-out company, CECAN Ltd. in 2019 to provide consultancy services to decision makers on innovative policy evaluation approaches.

[40] He and Stuart Peters created a journal management system, epress, originally to make running Sociological Research Online and JASSS easier, but now available commercially.

[47] Gilbert was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2016 Birthday Honours for services to engineering and the social sciences.