Department: Complexity Science

Location within the University: The Centre is initially housed in the Physical Sciences Building (alongside Physics and CSC personnel), until moving to new accommodation in the new extension to the Zeeman Building – completion scheduled Easter 2008.

Staff:
Chairman of the Complexity Complex:
Robert Mackay FRS, Professor of Mathematics

 

Director of the Complexity Science DTC:

Robin Ball, Professor of Theoretical Physics

Administrator of the Complexity Science DTC:

Phil Richardson

EPSRC-funded Academic Staff:

Dr Mario Nicodemi, Associate Professor Physics and Complexity

Dr Sach Mukherjee, Assistant Professor Statistics and Complexity

Dr Stefan Grosskinsky, Assistant Professor Mathematics and Complexity (starting 01/09/07)

RCUK Academic Fellows:

Dr Ellak Somfai, Assistant Professor Physics and Complexity

Dr Yulia Timofeeva, Assistant Professor Computer Science and Complexity

Dr Colm Connaughton, Assistant Professor Mathematics and Complexity

Function/Role of Department:
Warwick Complexity Complex aims to connect and develop interdisciplinary research in complexity science at all levels. They look to foster break-throughs in the principles and applications of complexity science, and to sustain a lively intellectual and practically based environment for complexity science. In addition, The Complexity Science Doctoral Training Centre (DTC) is funded by EPSRC to train a new generation at PhD level to understand, control and design complex systems.

Works closely with:
The Complexity Complex and particularly DTC have a strong commitment to link with end-users as sources of real-world problems, and as beneficiaries from the resulting knowledge and trainees. They have joint academic appointments with Maths, Physics, Computer Science and Statistics, and further departments having members serving as co-directors of the DTC include WMG, Chemistry, WMS and WBS. There are close relations with other Centres, notably MOAC DTC, Systems Biology and Centre for Scientific Computing.

Current projects:
The Doctoral Training Centre has a broad remit to train new PhDs with a cross-disciplinary view of Complexity Science, with applications ranging from Climate Reconstruction to Healthcare, and from flexibility in computer systems to quieter aircraft.

RCUK Fellowships based in the Centre are focussed on Dynamics of Granular Matter, Computational Neuroscience, and Turbulent Dynamics. Research interests of Faculty appointed to the DTC include Systems Biology, Network Inference, and Interacting Particle Systems.

Recent successes:
The two founding successes of the Complexity Complex are the winning of £4.1million of funding from the EPSRC for the new Doctoral Training Centre ( DTC) and the appointment of six RCUK Academic Fellowships in Complexity. The DTC has four successive cohorts of about 8 PhD students each, plus three new academic staff funded by EPSRC for a corresponding period. Three of the RCUK Academic Fellowships are directly based in the Complexity Centre.

Future projects:
The Centre aims to build up a full-scale and internationally known research institute. One key step is to develop international (and especially European) funding collaborations, both to expand research and to broaden the recruitment base for research students. They are also looking to broaden the discipline base of their UK funding, to create an entry route into their research for students from Social Science backgrounds.

Website: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/complexity