Research Projects
The Complex Systems Research Centre conducts research into the further development of the concepts and ideas behind complex systems, and also through applications and research projects trying to establish the implications and practical responses to the new ideas. This research may concern rather obvious issues of change, such as:
- new product/service definition and development
- the design, production and delivery of new products and services
- innovation issues in general
- organisational issues involved in these
but it may also consider other aspects of socio-economic systems as well. This could be the comparison, in evolutionary terms, of different possible organisational forms, such as
- evolutionary models of organisational forms
- vertically integrated firms
- supply chains or networks
- local district networks
- ICT and research clusters
The questions concerning "contracting out" of non-core business activities, the ability to generate relevant knowledge or the integration of suppliers and customers into partnership relation ships, are all structural patterns that have strengths and weaknesses that can be explored and examined. At the larger scale, the csrc is carrying out research into the:
- multi-level evolution of market systems and business sectors
- precise mechanisms of adaptation and learning
- impacts of regulatory frameworks.
The research is also aimed at providing a better conceptual foundation for economics than the traditional, neo-classical view that underpins policies and decisions made by a very large number of important players in the economic system.
Another important implication of the ideas is that we cannot separate the economic from the rest of the social system. Our research is therefore interested in the development of more integrated models and perspectives, multi-disciplinary and even a non-disciplinary approach to knowledge generation. In some ways this runs fundamentally against academic tradition, of ever-narrower disciplinary expertise and credibility. While this is possibly excusable in the academic world that aims at "understanding" and not at "application", we believe that in the real world, the use of any such knowledge requires an integrated systemic framework, in order to understand the interactions of one policy or decision with another. We therefore aim to provide research for policy support at the highest possible level that can allow for the integration and simultaneous consideration of policies and actions taken in different social and economic domains. We are suggesting a practical basis and support for "joined-up" government that is currently not available.
In summary our programme of research embraces the theoretical, the practical, issues concerning the learning and transformation of individuals as well as of organisations, and also the basis for policy and for decision making at the highest strategic levels.