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Complexity Science Hub Vienna

Climate change, financial turbulences, worldwide urbanization trends, growing numbers of natural disasters, impacts of fake news, migration: coping with the grand challenges of the 21st century needs a deeper quantitative and predictive understanding of complex systems. The science of complex systems provides us with new methods and novel ways of addressing these systems that were thought to be unintelligible only a few decades ago.

Complexity science links state-of-the-art mathematics, modelling, data and computer science with fundamental questions posed from various disciplines, such as medicine, economics, ecology or social sciences, and opens new paths to a deeper understanding of systemic risks, resilience, efficiency, and the requirements for sustainable innovation and creativity.

One of the bottlenecks in the field is the limited number of scientists that have both, a rigorous disciplinary training and a quantitative, mathematical, modeling, and data expertise.

The objective of the Hub is to host, educate, and inspire complex systems scientists, who are dedicated to make sense of Big Data in ways that are valuable for science and society. The Hub catalyzes research in a network of established scientists and the most creative, talented, and open-minded next-generation academics.

The Hub operates within an international network of complexity institutions, including the Santa Fe Institute, Arizona State University, the Institute of Advanced Studies Amsterdam, or Sapienza University in Rome. This stimulates an optimal flow of ideas and people, who work together on the most pressing questions of our times.

Professor emerita of science and technology studies
Complexity Science Hub Vienna, ETH Zurich