Need for capacity

There is an urgent national need, from industry, commerce, research institutions, academia, government and public services, for a new generation trained to understand how complex systems behave, how to live with them, to control them and to design them well. We see this in:

1. public service management
2. transport
3. public opinion
4. epidemics
5. riots
6. terrorism
7. and in nature from biomolecules to habitats, weather and climate.

Equally important are the challenges of keeping up in technology, e.g.

• distributed computing
• data management
• process control
• personalised medicine
• disease management
• environmental sensor swarms
• complex materials
• nano- & bio-technology, and
• radio frequency identification tagging.

Some complexity research activities

Warwick is well established in Complexity Research. It is the co-ordinating node of two EC NEST 'Tackling Complexity in Science' networks (UNInet and Complex Markets) and of the international nodes of Australia’s 'Complex Open Systems' research network.

The Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics (CFSA) leads complex systems approaches to space plasmas and has major Science and Innovation (S&I) funding to build up fusion plasma research.

Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG) is at the forefront of innovating tools and techniques to handle operational complexity in industry.

Further strengths in Complexity Science are present in:

• Warwick's Discrete Mathematics and Applications (DIMAP)
• Mathematical Interdisciplinary Research at Warwick (MIR@W) programme
• Molecular Organisation and Assembly in Cells (MOAC)
• Life Sciences
• Centre for Scientific Computing (CSC)
• Centre for Research in Statistical Methodology (CRiSM)
• Centre for Primary Health Care Studies
• Warwick Systems Biology Centre together with the Systems Biology Doctoral Training Centre.

Building for the future

The Centre for Complexity Science unites and reinforces the historical Warwick complexity activity and acts as springboard for the development of future projects.

About the Centre for Complexity Science in the Warwick Postgraduate Prospectus