Organizations of Interest

University of Waterloo

• Balsillie School of International Affairs is a centre for advanced research and teaching on global governance and international public policy. In particular, the centre addresses the challenges and opportunities faced due to ‘globalization’- a term indicating the deepening, thickening, acceleration, and intensification of interactions on a world-wide scale.

• Canadian Water Network is a highly sought after mobilizer of multidisciplinary water research and knowledge resources from across Canada.

• Centre for Business Entrepreneurship and Technology explores new ways of commercializing ideas to help entrepreneurs foster innovation, create new ventures and identify new markets.

• Centre for Ecosystem Resilience and Adaptation is a research hub working out of the University of Waterloo. The centre wants to address the impacts of global change through collaboration with UW-based Interdisciplinary Centre on Climate Change, Canadian Water Network, and Adaptations and Impacts Research Division of Environment Canada.

• Centre for Knowledge Integration is committed to providing education and enrichment opportunities that transcend traditional disciplines and prepare students to adapt to and engage with our complex world.

• Centre for Theoretical Neuroscience consists of several labs focused on various areas of theoretical neuroscience (aka computational neuroscience). At present, the Centre consists of faculty members from Applied Mathematics, Biology, Psychology, Engineering, Philosophy, Statistics, Computer Science, and their students from the University of Waterloo.

• Conflict Analysis Group within the Department of Systems Design Engineering wants to develop and implement formal methodologies for systematically studying decision situations involving multiple participants and multiple objectives.

• Huntsville Summit Centre for Environmental and Ecological Sustainability is a year-round research, teaching and community centre. Part of the University of Waterloo, the university is establishing the Centre as a high-profile research centre for ecology, climate change, tourism, land-use planning, and local economic development.

• Interdisciplinary Centre on Climate Change advances research on climate change through an interdisciplinary approach; understanding the physical basis of climate change, its impacts on biophysical and human systems, and adaptation and mitigation strategies in response to changes. Research at IC3 is supported by cutting-edge developments in observing system technologies and advanced numerical modeling.

• Mathematics of Information Technology and Complex Systems Group wants to develop the next generation of innovators with vital scientific and business skills. In partnership with companies, government and academia, Mitacs is supporting a new economy using Canada’s most valuable resource – its people.

• School of Environment, Enterprise and Development is a school on the forefront of education, research and training in environmentally responsible business and development. SEED will integrate the Faculty of Environment’s proven expertise in environmental sustainability, business management and economic development.

• Social Innovation Generation (SiG) seeks to engage partners across sectors to create a culture of continuous social innovation. To this end, the organization tries to channel their resources in ways that will have the greatest impact. They fully acknowledge that social innovations are not fixed; that they evolve and present new challenges, requiring agile and intentional action.

• Water Institute wants to facilitate excellence in research, education, and innovation in water science, technology, management, and governance.

• Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy wants to conduct original research and develop innovative solutions and policies to help shape the transformation of the energy system that is sustainable over the long term.

Canada

• Centre for International Governance Innovation is an independent, non-partisan think tank on international governance. Led by experienced practitioners and distinguished academics, CIGI supports research, forms networks, advances policy debate and generates ideas for multilateral governance improvements. Conducting an active agenda of research, events and publications, CIGI’s interdisciplinary work includes collaboration with policy, business and academic communities around the world.

• Institute for Risk Research wants to integrate the scientific knowledge and expertise that exists across many diverse disciplines which contribute to environmental protection in Canada.

• Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics is a basic research centre dedicated to exploring the world around us at its most fundamental level. It began in the summer of 1999 when Mike Lazaridis, founder of Research in Motion and the innovator who was instrumental in launching the smart phone revolution, found himself in a position to help foster research and innovation in Canada by establishing a world-class institute devoted to theoretical physics.

United States

• Centre for Social Complexity and the Department of Computational Social Science, George Mason University aspires to advance the knowledge frontiers of pure and applied social science, by using and developing computational and interdisciplinary approaches that yield new insights into the fundamental nature of social phenomena at all levels of social complexity-from cognitive networks to the world system.

• Centre for Social Dynamics and Complexity, Arizona State University is a centre devoted to creating transdisciplinary teams with the intellectual breadth to determine the algorithms of social dynamics across diverse contexts, ranging from genomes to entire organisms, and from individuals to cultures. It hopes to become a leader in this important area and shape the scientific community’s philosophical and methodological approaches to social complexity.

• Centre for the Study of Complex Systems, Michigan is a broadly interdisciplinary program in the College of Literature, Science and the Arts (LSA) at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Their mission is to encourage and facilitate research and education in the general area of nonlinear, dynamical and adaptive systems.

• New England Complex Systems Institute research advances fundamental science and its applications to real world problems, including social policy matters. NECSI researchers study networks, agent-based modeling, multiscale analysis and complexity, chaos and predictability, evolution, ecology, biodiversity, altruism, systems biology, cellular response, health care, systems engineering, negotiation, military conflict, ethnic violence, and international development.

• Northwestern University’s Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems is a university-wide institute. It is made of distinguished and diverse group of faculty from all areas of the university, including engineering, swarm robotics, business, natural sciences, education, medicine, law, and the social sciences. NICO seeks to develop new connections between existing research and to create new knowledge at the boundaries of existing disciplines.

• Santa Fe Institute is a private, not-for-profit, independent research and education centre, founded in 1984, where leading scientists grapple with some of the most compelling and complex problems of our time.

• Vermont Complex Systems Centre is a research institute that offers courses, certificates, and speakers to those interested in expanding their understanding of complex systems.

International

• The Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis research is focused on the application of computer models, data visualisation techniques, innovative sensing technologies, mobile applications and urban and regional theory linked to city systems.

• CABDyN Complexity Centre investigates complex agent-based dynamic networks, and reflects a shared interest in network dynamics and agent-based models of complex systems across a broad range of application domains. CABDyN brings together a truly multi-disciplinary group of researchers in more than ten University Departments in Oxford, ranging from the physical, biological and computational sciences to the social, economic and political sciences.

• Institute for Knowledge Innovation and Technology is a global network of organizations committed to the advancement of knowledge building technology and practices in all sectors of society.

• Oxford Martin School is a unique, interdisciplinary research community of over 300 scholars working to address the most pressing global challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. From the governance of geoengineering and the possibilities of quantum physics, to the future of food and the implications of our ageing population, we support over 30 individual research teams from across the University of Oxford to consider some of the biggest questions that concern our future.

• Para Limes is a research hub currently being established by Dr. Jan Wouter Vasbinder, in association with Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

• Stockholm Resilience Centre advances research on the governance of social-ecological systems with a special emphasis on resilience – the ability to deal with change and continue to develop.