Presentation

ComplexCité is an innovative and federative initiative that aims at bringing together the expertise at Université Paris Cité and associated partners, in the modeling of complex phenomena, from theoretical aspects to experimental explorations and multidisciplinary applications. While a few individual-based interdisciplinary cross-department interactions already exist, ComplexCité has been designed as a large-scale transverse structure that intends to act as a cradle to promote and to support research and training related to the modeling of complex phenomena at Université Paris Cité, and in particular to initiate, stimulate and develop collaborations in those areas where interdisciplinary expertise, or a combination of theoretical (mathematical or computational) and experimental skills, are required. To fulfill that goal, the main actions of ComplexCité are

  1. to provide fellowships at all post-graduate stages, from master to PhDs and postdoctoral associates, with emphasis on projects that involve joint supervision of interdisciplinary nature
  2. to build a community through outreach events, meetings and more specialized workshops at all scales of the consortium.

Composition of the consortium

The consortium of ComplexCité is a broad, diverse and multidisciplinary entity that combines about 150 tenured researchers from multiple groups across the University, from mathematics and fundamental computer science, to physics and biophysics, planet earth and medicine. As a whole, the consortium incorporates the large panel of complementary expertise that is needed to tackle complex phenomena, from conceptual aspects and modeling (including analysis of PDEs, probability and stochastic processes, (bio-)statistics and data sciences, optimization and (machine) learning, combinatorics and graphs, and statistical physics) to empirical and observational proficiency (including nonlinear physics, (geological) fluid mechanics, infectious diseases). The composition of the consortium involves members of the Faculty of Sciences:

  • the four research labs in mathematics: IMJ-PRG, LJLL, LPSM and MAP5
  • the fundamental computer science lab: IRIF
  • two physics labs: MSC, PMMH

and several groups from the Faculty of Health, from IPGP or from the university’s key partners:

  • two labs within the Faculty of Health: CRESS/ECSTRRA, IAME/MOCLID
  • one group at Institut de Physique du Globe : Geological Fluid Dynamics
  • two labs at Institut Pasteur: BC2P/Cell Polarity, Migration And Cancer & EGMH/Mathematical Modelling Of Infectious Diseases.

Scientific themes

The activities of the consortium are decomposed into the following four main themes which, altogether, provide a broad overview of the scientific spectrum of ComplexCité.

  1. Collective systems and their dynamics, from the microscopic scale to the macroscopic description (agent-based models, particle systems, disordered systems, PDEs, etc.)
  2. Fluid flows and applications (turbulence, complex fluids, atmospheric dynamics, climate applications, geophysical fluids, etc.)
  3. Modeling in life sciences: structure and function (intra- and supracellular organization, ecosystems and theoretical ecology, population dynamics, applications in epidemiology, immunology and cancer research, etc.)
  4. Optimization, learning and complexity (algorithms, graphs and networks, high-dimensional phenomena, verification, causal inference, etc.)