Concepts and Tools
Complex systems are characterized by emergent and collective phenomena of many interacting units. Fundamental understanding of these systems and the Micro-Macro paradigm comes from a variety of disciplines and techniques which we develop and integrate: Statistical Physics, Network theory, Machine Learning and other Artificial Intelligence methods, Big Data and Data Science, Dynamical Systems, Classical and Quantum Information, Quantum thermodynamics, Information Processing methods and, in general, physics thinking for complex systems that allows tackling concepts such as Emergence, Collective Phenomena, Determinism or Stochasticity.
This research line is the backbone of IFISC: we develop new concepts and methods for the study of Complex Systems, and we analyze generic phenomena.
Researchers
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Pere Colet
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Miguel C. Soriano
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Ingo Fischer
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Tobias Galla
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Damià Gomila
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Emilio Hernández-García
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Rosa Lopez
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Cristóbal López
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Víctor M. Eguíluz
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Manuel Matías
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Claudio Mirasso
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Jose Javier Ramasco
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Maxi San Miguel
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David Sánchez
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Llorenç Serra
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Tomás Sintes
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Raúl Toral
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Roberta Zambrini
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Massimiliano Zanin
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Konstantin Klemm
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Sandro Meloni
Recent and ongoing Research projects
ARCTIC
Air Transport as Information and Computation
P.I.: Massimiliano Zanin
This project is an ERC Starting Grant of panel SH2, "Institutions, Values, Environment and Space". Air transport has by and large been studied as a transportation process, in which different elements, e.g. ...
POST-DIGITAL
POST-DIGITAL: Neuromorphic computing in photonic and other nonlinear media
P.I.: Ingo Fischer, Claudio Mirasso
POST-DIGITAL is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network, funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. POST-DIGITAL is committed to form a new generation of engineers and researchers, affording ...
Ocean Citizen
Marine forest coastal restoration: an underwater gardening socio-ecological plan
P.I.: Damià Gomila
Following the non-achievement of the AICHI targets and most of the Good Environmental Status objectives for 2020, active restoration has been emerged (also envisaged by the EU) as one of the preferred ...
CoQHoNet
Connecting Quantum Hopfield Networks
P.I.: Roberta Zambrini
CoQHoNet is a Marie Curie European Postdoctoral Fellowships, which allows the hiring of Dr. Eliana Fiorelli to execute the following research project: Classical Neural Networks (NNs) are architectures successfully employed in Machine ...
RE-TE
Regional Economy / Travel Expectations
P.I.: Massimiliano Zanin
The assessment of the economic health of economies around the world has historically been based on reports prepared by multiple public and private institutions – from banks to governments. These describe how ...
NEHIL
Neuromorphic-Enhanced Heterogeneously-Integrated FMCW LiDAR
P.I.: Miguel C. Soriano
The NEHIL project, an EU-Korea partnership, is set to transform the landscape of digital technologies through groundbreaking neuromorphic architectures and advanced heterogeneous integration such as LiDAR systems. This collaborative initiative aims to ...
OLGRA
Operadores Laplacianos en grafos y redes con repulsores/atractores y dinámicas relacionadas
P.I.: Ernesto Estrada
El uso de grafos está ampliamente extendido como una herramienta matemática para el estudio de diversos sistemas. En Físicas estos son usados en modelos electrónicos de sistemas conjugados, en sistemas de spines, ...
MISLAND
Modelling island ecological complexity in the context of global change
P.I.: Lucas Lacasa
** This project (PID2020-114324GB-C22) is part of a coordinated project between IFISC and IMEDEA, both research centers from CSIC located in Mallorca. The project is funded by AEI and a PhD fellowship ...
QuTTNAQMa
TRANSPORTE CUANTICO Y TERMODINAMICA: NUEVAS AVENIDAS EN MATERIALES CUANTICOS
P.I.: Rosa Lopez, Llorenç Serra
The aim of this project is to investigate the heat and energy transport properties in nanoconductors considering complex phenomena due to either many-body interactions and/or the presence of quantum materials.
DYNDEEP
Dynamics of Temporal Networks: Memory and Deep Learning
P.I.: Lucas Lacasa
The interaction between elements of a complex system arising in physics, biology or sociology can be modelled as a mathematical graph. The precise architecture of this interaction backbone plays a fundamental role ...
APASOS
A Physics approach to sociotechnical systems: from theory to data analysis.
P.I.: Tobias Galla, Sandro Meloni, Maxi San Miguel, Raúl Toral
APASOS objective is to use mathematical and computational methods combined with data and physics thinking to model complex socio-technical systems. APASOS is organized into two workpackages (WP). WP 1 focuses on models ...
CYCLE
Complex DYnamics of CoastaL Ecosystems: Resilience to Climate Change. Modelling and Simulations.
P.I.: Damià Gomila, Tomás Sintes
Complex Dynamics of Coastal Ecosystems: Resilience to Climate Change (CYCLE) is a coordinated multidisciplinary research project that brings together the efforts of experts in the fields of marine ecology and the physics ...
SEDIMENT
SEagrass DIversity in the MEditerranean basin in a global change scenario: a machine learNing approach from saTellite images
P.I.: Manuel Matías, Tomás Sintes
The main challenge of this project is to correlate the changes in the sea surface temperature (SST) in the Mediterranean basin with the spatial distribution and size of different seagrass species. We ...
MdM-IFISC-2
Maria de Maeztu 2023-2026
P.I.: Ernesto Estrada, Ingo Fischer, Emilio Hernández-García, Rosa Lopez, Claudio Mirasso, Jose Javier Ramasco, Raúl Toral, Roberta Zambrini
After 15 years of its existence, IFISC can point to a proven track record of impactful research. The previous 2018-2022 MdM award has significantly enhanced the institute's capabilities, as demonstrated by an ...
CoQuSy
Complex Quantum Systems: machine learning, thermodynamics, and emergent phenomena
P.I.: Gian Luca Giorgi, Gonzalo Manzano, Roberta Zambrini
CoQuSy is a coordinated project and joins all the researchers at IFISC (belonging either to CSIC or UIB) working in the common line of complex quantum systems. The coordination is motivated by ...
CATSUIT
Climbing at the Source of Irreversibility
P.I.: Massimiliano Zanin
Irreversibility, i.e. the lack of invariance of the statistical properties of a system or time series under the operation of time reversal, has attracted the interest of the physics community since the ...
SNANDOG
Spatiotemporal Nonlocal and Non-conservative Diffusion on Graphs
P.I.: Ernesto Estrada
Complex systems permeate biological life, society, and modern infrastructures. Their functioning depends primarily on the dynamic processes that take place between interacting entities that form network structures. Such structures can be appropriately ...
SCS
Sensing Complex Systems
P.I.: Lucas Lacasa
La reciente incorporación del Dr. Lucas Lacasa al IFISC abre la posibilidad de consolidar líneas de investigación relevantes como son el desarrollo de la teoría dinámica de redes y el análisis de ...
ICOOP22059
Analysis of stability and resilience of Cameroon's power grid on the incorporation of renewable energy sources
P.I.: Pere Colet
Stable operation of the electric power grid is based on several control methods and suitable management that includes demand forecasting, technical maintenance, generation and transmission planning, etc. The grid operator is the ...
AIAM
Artificial Intelligence & Animal Movement
P.I.: Jorge P. Rodríguez
The AIAM project will introduce Artificial Intelligence (AI) in marine movement tracking ecology. Collecting marine animal movement is a laborious and expensive process, and AI tools can help optimize it, by, for ...
QTD-InFlexity
Quantum thermodynamics: information, fluctuations and complexity
P.I.: Gonzalo Manzano
In the last two decades, thermodynamics has been extended to describe small systems, where the action of environmental noise “blurs” traditional thermodynamic constraints and information plays a central role. While the first ...
BOND
Brain Network Organization and Dynamics
P.I.: Leonardo Lyra Gollo
This project explores the intricate architecture and temporal evolution of brain networks through the lens of neurophysics and complex systems. Utilizing tools from dynamical systems, network theory, and statistical physics, we aim ...
Recent Publications
Excitable dynamics and coral reef formation: A simple model of macro-scale structure development
Álvarez-Alegría, Miguel; Moreno-Spiegelberg, Pablo; Matias, Manuel A; Gomila, DamiàSubmitted (2025)
Gambling Carnot Engine
Tohme, Tarek; Bedoya, Valentina; di Bello, Costantino; Bresque, Léa; Manzano, Gonzalo; Roldán, ÉdgarSubmitted (2025)
Global Balance and Systemic Risk in Financial Correlation Networks
Bartesaghi, Paolo; Diaz-Diaz, Fernando; Grassi, Rosanna; Uberti, PierpaoloSubmitted (2025)
Reassessing quantum-thermodynamic enhancements in continuous thermal machines
Almanza-Marrero,José A.;Manzano,GonzaloSubmitted (2025)
Unravelling the universal spatial properties of coral reefs
Giménez-Romero, Àlex; Matías, Manuel A.; Duarte, Carlos M.Global Ecology and Biogeography 34, e13939 (1-12) (2025)
Related News
IFISC researchers uncover universal spatial patterns in coral reefs worldwide
Dec. 18, 2024
Researchers reveal universal spatial patterns in coral reefs, uncovering consistent ecological laws across diverse marine environments.These findings provide new insights into reef conservation and restoration by linking coral reef structures to mathematical principles.A groundbreaking study published in the ...
IFISC highlighted in Nature Communications as a model of interdisciplinary research
Dec. 13, 2024
The article highlights
that the Institute explores scientific territories at the frontiers between
traditional fields, facilitating the emergence of new areas of knowledge.
The Institute for Cross-disciplinary
Physics and Complex Systems (IFISC, UIB-CSIC) is the protagonist of a new
article ...
New mathematical framework reveals architecture of biotic interactions
Oct. 25, 2024
An interdisciplinary team with IFISC participation has developed a model that integrates multiple types of biotic
interactions in a single framework. What is innovative about this
mathematical framework is that it is not limited to ecological networks, but
can be ...
Researchers analyze how our relationships affect the adoption of innovations
Oct. 21, 2024
The study, published in PNAS Nexus, reveals that indirect connections in social networks influence the adoption of innovations, with an impact that reaches up to two-thirds that of direct contacts.The experiment demonstrates that the influence of friends of friends ...
Signed networks model enhances understanding of global conflicts and alliances
Sept. 9, 2024
Researchers at IFISC
and the University of Milano-Bicocca develop a model using signed networks to
understand international relations.The study, published
in the Journal of Applied Mathematics and Computing, proposes a local balance
index to evaluate countries' contributions to global ...