COSASTI COMPLEX SYSTEMS APPROACH TO SOCIAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL INTERACTIONS

P.I.: Tobias Galla, Jose Javier Ramasco, David Sánchez, Raúl Toral
Coordinator: Raúl Toral
Start date: Sept. 1, 2025
End date: Aug. 31, 2028

Human interactions have traditionally been the subject of the social sciences, separate from the natural sciences. The trend towards quantitative and computational social sciences is recent, and the theory of complex systems has contributed to this trend. Social interactions are now studied based on large datasets, and with mathematical models and computer simulations.
Gaining quantitative insight into social dynamics remains a challenge for decades to come, amplified by a constant stream of innovation. Widespread use of smartphones and social media date back only 15-20 years and has radically changed human interaction. Artificial intelligence, solar panels or electric cars are changing how humans move and interact. New challenges arise (e.g., erosion of facts, spread of misinformation, polarisation of society). At the same time complexity science has reached a level of maturity, and has been used to model the pandemic, and for the targeted use of social media in political campaigns.
We are confident that physics-driven complexity science has further significant contributions to make. This is also evidenced by the award of the 2021 and 2024 Physics Nobel Prizes at the interface of complex systems and interdisciplinary applications. We believe the tools and ideas from statistical physics can make a real difference for this challenge. This is why we are proposing this project `Complex Systems Approach to Social and Technological Interactions (CoSASTI).
We will use mathematical and computational methods, data and physics thinking to model complex socio-technical systems. The members of the core research team are based at the Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Physics and Complex Systems (IFISC), run jointly by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), and the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB). For administrative reasons we make a division between the CSIC and UIB subprojects, but this is one single project in terms of the scientific contents.
We build on our success in the previous APASOS (A Physics approach to sociotechnical systems: from theory to data analysis, PID2021-122256NB- C21/22), which has delivered nearly 40 publications to the mid point, including multiple papers in high impact journals.
The project is divided into 7 workpackages (WP), all with participants from both subprojects. WP1 addresses fundamental questions in complex systems, parallels between applications, and tools for the problems in WPs 2-7. WP2s goal is to develop models of opinion dynamics and to unearth mechanisms of social polarisation, consensus, and the effects of extreme behaviour. In WP3 we investigate if and how stable equilibria arise in human and artificial learning. We will draw parallels to biological evolution and ecology. The ambition of WP4 is to gain insight into the variation of language and culture, volatility and language death. Through historical-corpus analysis we will characterise past cultural periods. WP5 will improve urban systems, study the relation between land use and mobility, pollution, the real-estate market and spatial segregation. WP6 focuses on transport and energy: multimodal transport, delays in airport networks, spatial distribution of road accidents and powergrid stability with renewable sources. Problems in healthcare are the focus of WP7, including the modelling and prediction of epidemic spread, patient arrivals in hospital emergency rooms, and the ranking of treatment options.