About Us Mission

Mission

The main objective of CSDC is to serve as a point of reference and aggregation for research and development activities in an interdisciplinary context in the field of complex systems, namely those systems which, although as a rule they are not composed of complicated elements, display collective behaviors that are difficult to predict; see the Complex Systems section.

CSDC mainly operates as a coordination tool within the University of Florence, fostering contacts and exchanges among the affiliated departments and organizing research, training, and outreach activities.

CSDC’s activity in the field of physics is combined with that of the Institute for Complex Systems of the CNR, which has a branch in Florence.

In pursuing this aim, CSDC presents itself as a natural contact point for stakeholders outside academia, such as local authorities, associations, and entrepreneurs, in order to enhance and consolidate the set of skills that form the core of basic research. CSDC actively works on the definition and implementation of research projects shared with the above-mentioned stakeholders, starting from the identification of concrete problems in sectors such as, for example, land management and planning, econometric studies, pharmacology and gene therapy, computational neuroscience, the production of new materials, automation and control, and the development of expert systems.

 

Another of CSDC’s main objectives is to increase scientific knowledge through transdisciplinary projects, promoting and coordinating the search for financial resources dedicated to these projects. All members share equal duties and opportunities, in a context where all formal distinctions between individuals who largely carry out the same profession have in fact been overcome.

 

An equally important aim is to contribute to the creation of new research profiles, providing young undergraduates and PhD students with educational and professional training tools suited to the new challenges of complexity. In this regard, it should be emphasized that CSDC members hold official positions in several PhD schools of the University of Florence. It is particularly worth noting that within the PhD programme in Information Engineering there is an active thematic area in Control, Optimization and Complex Systems involving a significant number of members of the Centre.