EMERGENT FOCUS Complexity in SBE NSFwide Complexity Focus

EMERGENT FOCUS Complexity in SBE

NSF-wide Complexity Focus Complexity is Embedded in CDI Interacting elements. Large numbers of interacting elements, random interactions and aggregate or emergent phenomena are key factors in important systems – from atomic particles to societies. CDI will improve our ability to predict and deduce interactions in complex systems to better understand, design and control them. Knowledge extraction. Computational experimentation. Virtual environments. Education for computational discovery.

NSF-wide Complexity Focus Informal NSF-wide Working Group SUCCESSFUL OECD Proposal ‘Complex Systems and the Science of Unanticipated Consequences and Unrealized Opportunities’

Policy for Timely and Urgent Global Situations • • • Weather and climate forecasting Disaster vulnerability and responses Dynamics of alienation and conflict Economic and political dynamics Disease epidemiology Dynamically responsive sensors & materials • Sustainable energy technologies

SBE WORKING GROUP ON COMPLEXITY: Building Capacity Jacqueline Meszaros, IOS, DRMS Cheryl Eavey, MMS Chris Kello, SLC Fred Kronz, STS Terry Langendoen, CI, Ling Jon Leland, DRMS Ping Li, PAC Dan Newlon, Econ Rita Teutonico, HSD Betty Tuller, PAC Doug Whalen, Cog. Neuro, Ling

SBE WG: Exploring Issues in Complexity Successes and promising directions: -Complexity as a style of thinking -Patterns in human cognition, learning, movement, language …. -Modeling of heterogeneous, interacting, adaptive populations -Tools

SBE WG: Exploring Issues in Complexity What do SBE Sciences Bring to Complexity Studies? -Rich descriptions and measures -Commitment to validity -Attn to bottom-up processes -Important, messy problems

SBE Dear Colleague Letter “Encouraging Submission of Proposals involving Complexity and Interacting Systems to Programs in the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences” Design of this Effort: Distributed, Supported, Synergistic with CDI Follow-up: Learning for Future Years

HOPES?

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. ” - John Muir