C3 symposia

Our biannual Symposium on “Complexity, Criticality and Computation” (C3-2023) will take place during 15-21 January 2023 at the University of Queensland’s research station on Heron Island, a coral island on the Great Barrier Reef.

We will cover three foundational questions:

• Is biology beyond physics: are there universal principles across both physical and biological phenomena?
• How do consciousness and language emerge, and can we describe these phenomena rigorously?
• Are there fundamental physical constraints guiding the rise and fall of civilisations?

The program will span five days (Monday – Friday), and each day will be devoted to a specific topic, including critical phenomena, brain and mind, socio-biology, crisis modelling, and complexity economics.

This invitation-only event will provide opportunities for discussions and networking, especially between senior and early-career researchers.

The Centre for Complex Systems invited 16 early-career researchers and higher-degree-by-research students via its “Emerging Aspirations 2022” award scheme, with 8 more ECRs invited directly using project funding.  

A detailed program will be announced at a later stage. The C3-2023 invited speakers include distinguished researchers from Canada (University of British Columbia), Germany (University of Bremen), UK (University of Bristol, University College – London), USA (Arizona State University, George Mason University, Los Alamos National Lab, Institute for Systems Biology, Santa Fe Institute) and Australia (RMIT, La Trobe University, University of Sydney, University of Western Australia).

Professor Mikhail Prokopenko (co-chair)

Professor Ian Wilkinson (co-chair)

The C3-2023 symposium is co-sponsored by the Centre for Complex Systems, and the postgraduate program in Complex Systems.  

Program

At this symposium, we focus on two broad themes: Sociophysics and Biocomplexity, across a diverse range of topics studied in Complex Systems:

• collective behaviour (opinion dynamics, swarm intelligence, active matter)
• nonlinear dynamics and critical phenomena
• anthropocene transitions (urban science, systemic risks, supply chains, economics)
• information theory and thermodynamics
• artificial intelligence and pattern discovery
• computational neuroscience and complex networks

For a full list of topics, see the Program.

Program committee

• Prof Mikhail Prokopenko (co-chair)
• Dr Michael Harre (co-chair)
• Dr Kirill Glavatskiy
• A/Prof Pulin Gong
• Madeleine Roberts (administrative contact)

Partners and sponsors

The C3 symposium is co-sponsored by the Centre for Complex Systems, and the postgraduate program in Complex Systems.  

Entropy is a media partner of the symposium, sponsoring the best presentation award at the event, which will be determined by the C3-2019 Program Committee. Read the special issue of Entropy which follows the symposium.

Keynote speakers:

• Prof. Dr. Stefan Bornholdt, Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Bremen, Germany
• Prof Roland Fletcher, The University of Sydney, Australia
• Prof Sheri Markose, University of Essex, UK
• A/Prof Tiago de Paula Peixoto, Central European University, Hungary

Regular speakers: 

• Dr Arunima Malik, The University of Sydney, Australia
• A/Prof Eduardo Altmann, The University of Sydney, Australia
• Dr Debora Correa, The University of Western Australia, Australia
• A/Prof Markus Brede, University of Southampton, UK
• Dr Michael Harre, The University of Sydney,
• A/Prof Richard Morris, UNSW, Australia
• Dr Emanuele Crosato, UNSW, Australia
• Prof Maia Angelova Turkedjieva, Deakin University, Australia

The Centre for Complex Systems "Emerging Aspirations" award speakers:

• Dr Svetlana Postnova, The University of Sydney, Australia
• Dr Mac Shine, The University of Sydney, Australia
• Dr Richard Spinney, The University of Sydney, Australia

Program

At this symposium, we considered a diverse range of systems, applications, theoretical and practical approaches to computational modelling of modern complex systems. These included:

• information theory
• agent-based simulation
• network theory
• nonlinear dynamics
• swarm intelligence
• evolutionary methods
• computational neuroscience
• econophysics.

For a full list of topics, download a copy of the program (pdf, 98.4KB).

Program committee

• Professor Mikhail Prokopenko (chair)
• Dr Demi Gao
• Dr Kirill Glavatskiy
• Dr Joseph Lizier
• Madeleine Roberts (administrative contact)

Sponsors and partners

The C3 symposium was co-sponsored by the Centre for Complex Systems, the CRISIS project, and the postgraduate program in Complex Systems.

Entropy was a media partner of the symposium. Read the special issue of Entropy which followed the symposium.

Invited speakers

• Associate Professor Eduardo Altmann: download presentation (pdf, 12.5MB)
• Dr Francesco Caravelli: view presentation (Prezi)
• Dr Dominique Chu: download presentation (pdf, 820KB)
• Associate Professor Manoj Gambhir: download presentation (pdf, 7.1MB)
• Dr Tim Germann
• Professor Paul Ormerod: download presentation (pdf, 981KB)
• Professor David Wolpert: download presentation (pdf, 1.7MB)

Regular speakers

• Dr Kirill Glavatskiy: download presentation (pdf, 2.8MB)
• Dr Ramil Nigmatullin: download presentation (pdf, 1.7MB)
• Dr Somwrita Sarkar: download presentation (pdf, 1.6MB)
• Dr Michael Harre: download presentation (pdf, 2.3MB)
• Dr Erik Aslaksen: download presentation (pdf, 275KB)
• Dr Alex Kalloniatis: download presentation (pdf, 4.6MB)
• Dr Joseph Lizier: download presentation (pdf, 6.4MB)
• Dr Ben Fulcher: download presentation (pdf, 15.9MB)
• Oliver Cliff: download presentation (pdf, 11.8MB)

Closing address - 'The complexity of the Universe'

• Professor Paul Davies, Arizona State University, Regents' Professor and Director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science, Co-Director ASU Cosmology Initiative, Principal Investigator Center for the Convergence of Physical Science and Cancer Biology.