New institute to examine complex systems

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team May 24, 2004

University of Bath is to establish a unique institute where researchers from a number of different scientific areas can join together to look for solutions to important scientific problems.

A GBP 1 million grant has been awarded to the University of Bath to establish a unique institute where researchers from a number of different scientific areas can join together to look for solutions to important scientific problems.

The Institute for Complex Systems brings together scientists from mathematics, statistics, engineering, physics and biology who believe that there can be a common approach to issues as diverse as the response of materials under electrical impulse and the behaviour of viruses and bacteria.

The directors of the new institute believe that the research carried out there will benefit a number of areas such as aviation, communications technology and the oil industry.

Organisations such as Airbus, QinetiQ, WS Atkins and Lawson Software are among partners in the institute.

The core idea behind the venture is that many phenomena, such as the development of diseases and the properties of particular materials, behave in a way that depends on how their basic elements connect together and interact, in what scientists call a complex system.

The fact that such phenomena can have similar behaviour when looked at as a whole means that a fundamental discovery about the way that basic elements connect in one area can have an impact across many areas of science.

The institute has been funded for five years from January 2005 by the EPSRC (Engineering Physics Scientific Research Council) and the BBSRC (Biology and Biochemistry Scientific Research Council).

The GBP 1 million grant was given to the University's Department of Mathematical Sciences to set up the institute and is one of the largest ever given to a mathematics department in the UK.

At the end of the five years its directors plan that the institute will fund itself through future projects, grants and contracts for its research work.

The institute will have two directors, Professor Chris Budd, of the Department of Mathematical Sciences, and Professor Giles Hunt, of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and about 30 staff from within the university.

Five post-doctoral researchers will also be recruited.

There will be many visiting lecturers and scientists from academia and industry both from the UK and overseas.

Apart from providing a forum for local and international scientists to meet and to exchange ideas, the Institute will run also various programs.

It will produce a newsletter and hold seminars, public lectures and presentations to popularise its work.

"The idea is to establish a self-supporting viable research unit which will look into a fundamental and vital aspect of many scientific areas", said Professor Budd.

"Investigating complex multi-scale systems has been an under-represented area of science in the UK compared with other leading scientific nations, and we are very happy that the University of Bath will be at the centre of action to strengthen this.

"We also want to make sure that the project does not finish after the five years of the grant, therefore we will stay in close connection with other international research centres, industry and the public".