Doctoral Opportunities
In the CSRC complex systems thinking is applied to a wide variety of issues, supported in the main by UK Research Council or European Union funding. The research undertaken covers a wide range of themes, such as new product/service definition and development, developing innovative organizations, the evolution of market systems and business sectors, the limits to knowledge and the building of resilient and sustainable systems. We are working in 2010 on two exciting research projects taking a complex systems perspective on Smart Grids and Distributed Energy Generation (CASCADE) and on intelligent freight logistics (ABI3L). During 2011 we will start work on three innovative research projects: Transforming Utilities’ Conversion Points (TUCP), All-in-One (Feasibility Analysis of Supplying All Services Through One Utility Product); and Land of the MUSCos (Multi-Utility Service Companies). All are inter-university collaborations.
The Centre is active in several networks interested in the implications of complexity for management and business. The first is the Complexity Society, a global network aimed at linking people interested in the ideas and implications of Complexity. It established the Journal: Emergence: Complexity and Organization, which has a growing circulation and attempts to link academics and practitioners in a sound, blind reviewed quality journal.
This also provides links to many other networks and societies working in related areas, allowing information about the ideas, about conferences, workshops, meetings and courses to be disseminated to a range of interested people, corporations and organisations. The European Complexity Society is a large international organization which holds an annual conference at different locations around Europe, and attracts hundreds of participants. Other links are to the Complexity Network linked to Liverpool and Lancaster universities, to PLEXUS a US based complexity society with strong interests in health care delivery. The Centre is also linked to many of the Complexity Centres that now exist around the world.
A particular area of expertise of the CSRC is that of the importance of creativity and learning in the design and innovation process. The capacity of a firm or an organisation to co-evolve successfully with its surroundings is closely related to its ability to acquire, contextualize and implement appropriate new product designs, new domains of activity and new organisational practices. The ideas behind complex systems provide a conceptual framework, and real advice concerning the mechanisms of exploration and learning and the necessary features of organisational cultures that will be able to do this.
The Centre offers opportunities to research these issues in private and public sector organisations, to provide courses and training material for managers concerning these ideas. The Centre also welcomes and supports PhD and Executive Doctorate students wishing to research into the implications and methods of implementation of complex systems thinking in real situations.