Key members of the CSIRO Centre for Complex Systems Science receiving the one-CSIRO award in 2006.

CSIRO Complex Systems Science

The CSIRO Complex Systems Science team supports a network of scientists who research complex systems, by providing opportunities for collaboration, sharing of ideas and capacity building.

  • 20 November 2006 | Updated 19 July 2012

CSIRO Complex Systems Science facilitates the development and use of techniques that will expand our knowledge and understanding of Complex Systems and help society make better informed planning and management decisions. 

CSIRO offers a unique scientific environment, encouraging cross-disciplinary interaction that is essential for addressing complex problems in science, business and industry.

CSIRO Complex Systems Science

The CSIRO Complex Systems Science team:

  • provides a contact point for researchers from universities, government departments, business and industry to access CSIRO researchers in Complex Systems Science
  • hosts an annual workshop on Complex Systems Science
  • provides opportunities for scientists to share knowledge, form collaborations and initiate new projects
  • conducts programs to educate established and novice Complex Systems Scientists
  • funds students and early career scientists who work on problems in Complex Systems Science
  • coordinates meetings and workshops that focus on key questions in Complex Systems Science
  • coordinates meetings and workshops that focus on analytical techniques such as Agent Based Modeling, Network Theory, Cellular Automata and Dynamical Systems
  • disseminates information on funding, conferences and meetings to a network of Complex Systems Scientists.

    CSIRO offers a unique scientific environment, encouraging cross-disciplinary interaction that is essential for addressing complex problems in science, business and industry.

The core team

The CSIRO Complex Systems Science team is based in Canberra.  The team supports Complex Systems Science research across CSIRO and provides linkage opportunities for the sharing of ideas across CSIRO, Australia and internationally.

Core team members are:

  • Dr John Finnigan, CSIRO Fellow
  • Dr David Newth, Research Scientist 
  • Dr Don Gunasekera, Senior Economist
  • Dr Nicky Grigg, Research Scientist.
  • Dr Ian Harman, Postdoctoral Fellow.

Areas of research

Research support is structured around complex systems in relation to:

  • social-ecological systems
  • physical systems
  • biological complexity
  • fundamental Complex Systems Science.  

The projects undertaken in these area include:

  • Social-ecological systems
    CSIRO scientists are gaining new insights into the way social-ecological systems function and into phenomena like societal resilience and collapse and the dynamics of financial markets.
  • Physical systems
    CSIRO scientists are using Complex Systems Science to study complex behaviour in both the natural world (climate variability, atmospheric turbulence and geological processes) and engineering systems such as mineral processing and the design of computer, water and power supply networks.  
  • Biological complexity
    From genes to populations, from individuals to ecosystems, CSIRO scientists are researching the richness of biological systems and exploring their capacity for adaptation and self-organising behaviour.
  • Fundamental Complex Systems Science
    Scientists are addressing the underlying principles of Complex Systems Science such as emergence and self-organisation, developing new analytical tools and finding better ways to fuse models with real data.

Find out more about the CSIRO Centre for Complex Systems Science.