In the last ten years the interlinks between people and technology and the dissolution of boundaries between the cyberworld and the real-world have changed our accessibility to data. We have witnessed a tremendous flow of novel and quantitative social, demographic and behavioral data that finally, analogously to what happened in physics, allow us to move from the analysis of the “social atom” or “social molecules” (i.e. small social groups) to the quantitative analysis of “social aggregate states”. This opens unprecedented research opportunities in areas such as computational epidemiology, the structure and evolution of user-driven information networks, the modeling of social dynamics etc. In those areas we are finally in the position to see complexity science at work to the solution of major societal problems such as the containment of emergent diseases, the design of better energy distribution systems, the planning for traffic-free cities or the optimization of internet connectivity.

The ISI- Institute for Scientific Interchange- took up on these challenges at the frontier of complexity science both moving ahead the research efforts in the traditional Institutes’ areas of strength such as quantum and statistical physics as well as generating new thrusts in the investigation of novel areas such as complex networks, social computational sciences and information technologies.

Laboratories

The Institute is articulated in laboratories that are not intended as disciplinary silos but as thematic interconnected group of interest:

• Computational Epidemiology Laboratory
• Complex Networks and Systems Lagrange Laboratory
• Quantum Science Laboratory
• Data Science Laboratory
• Complexity Material Laboratory

Each group is coordinating specific projects and initiatives that in most of the cases are drawing resources and expertise across the full spectrum of expertise and teams present at ISI. As diverse all the research activities carried out at ISI may seem, the methodological approach used by the ISI research groups is the nexus where different fields and problems find their unifying framework. Techniques borrowed from statistical physics, non-linear dynamics and computational modeling form the transversal backbone of the Institute research strategy and allow the interdisciplinary approach and cross fertilization that more than anything else are contributing to the uniqueness and richness of the ISI research activities.