Dates: from March 1, 2011 to Feb. 28, 2015

Funder: FP7 (European Union)

Project id: FP7-PEOPLE-2010-RG 277166

Total Funding: 100,000€

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Cells, ecosystems and economies are examples of complex systems. In complex systems, individual components interact with each other, usually in nonlinear ways, giving rise to complex networks of interactions that are neither totally regular nor totally random. Partly because of the interactions themselves and partly because of the interaction topology, complex systems cannot be properly understood by just analyzing their constituent parts, which poses important challenges from both a fundamental perspective and an "application" perspective. The structure of the network of interactions was traditionally ignored and approximated by one of two limiting cases: a regular low-dimensional lattice or a completely random uncorrelated graph. It wasn't until recently that the scientific community, spearheaded by physicists, started to look for universality on the statistical description and classification of networks. Although significant progress has been made since then, we are still far from the ultimate goal of developing a general theory describing the impact of network structure on the dynamics of complex systems. The general aims of the project are: (i) to develop a general theoretical framework, based on the mesoscopic structure of networks, to understand the interplay between network structure and system dynamics; and (ii) to apply this framework to biological and socio-economic systems of interest.

Roger Guimerà

Role: Principal Investigator