Complexity is a newly arising science that studies emergent phenomena in systems with a large number of agents, i.e.,collective behavior that appears because of the interaction and not predictable or understandable from the individual ones. Social systems, formed by people; the brain, formed by neurons;macromolecules, formed by atoms, or the weather, formed by fluxes of air and water, are good examples of complex systems. This discipline has an intrinsic horizontal character that, based on Physics and Mathematics,touches upon all the traditional branches of Science, as well as on Engineering, Management or Medicine, focusing on questions about parts, the whole and their relationship. There are three main interrelated basic issues: the study of how interactions give rise to patterns of behavior; the design of new methods to describe and analyze complex systems, and the process of formation of such systems.

The groups joining in this proposal are pioneers in the field at the national level, and are amongst the best considered by the scientific community. They have been collaborating since 1996, and it is precisely the success of their collaboration that leads them to the qualitative change of integrating in a single research group with common financial support. We intend, with this, to open up and diversify our research, emphasizing its cross-disciplinary character; to become competitive at the international level and,specifically, in the next 7th Framework Programme of the European Union, and also to foster cooperation with the private sector.

 

The research lines followed in this project are:

  • Nanotechnology and Materials
    • Complex fluids, porous media and nanofluidics
    • Magnetic and Electronic Nanodevices
    • Granular media
    • Biology and Biophysics
  • DNA Biophysics
    • Genomics, Proteomics and Metabolomics
    • Evolution and Evolutionary Dynamics
  • Social sciences
    • Structure of the stock market
    • Social networks and information diffusion
    • Game theory, human behavior and cultural dynamics
    • New methods in inference problems

 

The precise aims addressed in this project are summarized here.