REGISTRATION FEE
(Includes attendance to all the courses, seminars, and activities of the school, gala dinner, coffee breaks and lunch)
210 €
Summer School on Complex Systems Society (CS3)
to October 03, 2025
Deadline for abstract submissions (for poster and/or contributed talk presentations) has been extended to September 7th, 2025. Consequently, resolutions for new applications will be postponed to September 10th, 2025 and confirmation of acceptance must be sent by September 14th, 2025.
Notice that this school takes place one week before the XII GEFENOL-DIFENSC Summer School on Statistical Physics of Complex Systems. The schools are coordinated and participants are encouraged to attend both of them. Registration is independent.
Introduction
The Science of Complex Systems is providing radical new ways of understanding the physical, biological, ecological, and social universe.
The Complex Systems Society Spain (CS3) is a recently created organization that encompasses the Spanish Chapter of the Complex Systems Society.
CS3 is an organization dedicated to coordinating and promoting research in complex systems in Spain. Its mission is to connect the broad and active research community in this field, broaden the range of research topics, and provide greater visibility nationally and internationally.
A number of activities have been developed already, in particular three annual meetings.
The school here is the 1st edition of a future series of biennial schools.
INVITED COURSES
The beautiful complexity of the developmental process
Bernat Corominas-Murtra
Graz University
ABSTRACT
The process of organism development leads to the emergence of a fully formed organism starting from a single cell, representing one of Nature’s most astonishing phenomena. As development unfolds, numerous processes intricately overlap to construct a viable individual, with its immense complexity —be it a fly, a mouse, or a human being— in a remarkably short amount of time. In this course we will revise several aspects of this intriguing subject following the timeline of embryo development:
–General overview of the early embryo development in animals
–Feedbacks between cell properties, stochasticity, mechanics and topology
–Dynamical singularities in the early embryo dynamics
–Phase transitions in embryonic tissue dynamics
–Phase transitions and symmetry breaking at the onset of morphogenesis
Cities as Complex Systems
Rafael Prieto-Curiel
Complexity Science Hub
ABSTRACT
1 Cities, city delineation, Zipf, Gibrat, and migration between cities
2 Scaling
3 The structure of a city
4 Urban mobility
5 Urban violence
Optimization as a predictive principle for complex biological networks
Gasper Tkačik
Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA)
ABSTRACT
Biology confronts us beautiful examples of evolved networked systems, where network nodes — be it genes, neurons, or whole organisms — interact to perform a certain function. Even though the individual nodes may be heterogenous, unreliable, delayed, or noisy, the emergent collective behaviors can be stunningly reproducible. One way to understand this evolved complexity is via the use of optimization principles, by assuming that natural selection has driven such networked systems far away from random expectation, or typicality. In this course, I will try to touch upon multiple intersecting themes where optimization principles help us rationalize and perhaps even predict, ab initio, what is observed, in particular, with reference to how living systems process information. I will:
-) introduce a Bayesian statistical framework that interpolates between ab initio prediction (via optimality) and data fitting
-) give a historical background and some recent results on how optimization of information transmission has predicted non-trivial things about our nervous systems
-) talk about information transmission in genetic regulatory networks and apply the ideas to early fruit fly development
-) show some very recent work that ties together evolution and what may enable or prevent information from being optimally encoded in our genomes
These lectures bring together ideas from statistical physics, information theory, evolution, and molecular biophysics, but will not assume extensive background in any of the topics.
The Thermodynamic Limits of the Economy
Antonio Turiel
Institut de Ciències del Mar – CSIC
ABSTRACT
– Exponential Dynamics and Limits to Natural-resources Production
– Entropy and the Economic Process
– Environmental Limits: A Dynamic Ecological Perspective
– Agent-based numerical models: World2 (“Limits to Growth”) and Later Models
– Is Collapse Avoidable? An Anthropology and a Systems Perspective on Collapses Throughout History
Introduction to Complexity Science – Going from foundations in philosophy, mathematics, and physics to current research in social science
Karoline Wiesner
University of Potsdam
ABSTRACT
From Randomness to Complexity
Data Processing in Complexity science; linear and non-linear dimensionality reduction techniques and why they matter
INVITED TALK
TBP
Marta Sales-Pardo
Universitat Rovira i Virgili
scientific committee
local organizers
SCHEDULE
Monday September 29th | Tuesday September 30th | Wednesday October 1st | Thursday October 2nd | Friday October 3rd | |
8:30 9:15 | Registration | ||||
9:15 9:30 | Welcome/opening | ||||
9:30 10:30 | Cities as Complex Systems Rafael Prieto-Curiel Complexity Science Hub | The Beautiful Complexity of the Developmental Process Bernat Corominas-Murtra Graz University | The Beautiful Complexity of the Developmental Process Bernat Corominas-Murtra Graz University | The Thermodynamic Limits of the Economy Antonio Turiel Institut de Ciències del Mar – CSIC | The Thermodynamic Limits of the Economy Antonio Turiel Institut de Ciències del Mar – CSIC |
10:30 11:30 | The Beautiful Complexity of the Developmental Process Bernat Corominas-Murtra Graz University | Cities as Complex Systems Rafael Prieto-Curiel Complexity Science Hub | Cities as Complex Systems Rafael Prieto-Curiel Complexity Science Hub | ||
11:30 12:00 | COFFEE BREAK | ||||
12:00 13:00 | The Beautiful Complexity of the Developmental Process Bernat Corominas-Murtra Graz University | Cities as Complex Systems Rafael Prieto-Curiel Complexity Science Hub | Cities as Complex Systems Rafael Prieto-Curiel Complexity Science Hub | Optimization as a Predictive Principle for Complex Biological Networks Gasper Tkačik Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) | Optimization as a Predictive Principle for Complex Biological Networks Gasper Tkačik Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) |
13:00 14:00 | TBP Marta Sales-Pardo Universitat Rovira i Virgili | TBA | TBA | Introduction to Complexity Science Karoline Wiesner University of Potsdam | Introduction to Complexity Science Karoline Wiesner University of Potsdam |
14:00 15:30 | LUNCH | ||||
15:30 16:30 | Optimization as a Predictive Principle for Complex Biological Networks Gasper Tkačik Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) | Optimization as a Predictive Principle for Complex Biological Networks Gasper Tkačik Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) | Optimization as a Predictive Principle for Complex Biological Networks Gasper Tkačik Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) | Introduction to Complexity Science Karoline Wiesner University of Potsdam | Introduction to Complexity Science Karoline Wiesner University of Potsdam |
16:30 17:30 | Contributed Talks | Poster Session | The Beautiful Complexity of the Developmental Process Bernat Corominas-Murtra Graz University | Tutorial | |
17:30 18:30 | Poster Session | ||||
LIST OF PARTICIPANTS
| Name | Institution |
|---|---|
| Bernat Corominas-Murtra | Graz University |
| Rafael Prieto-Curiel | Complexity Science Hub |
| Gasper Tkacik | Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) |
| Antonio Turiel | Institute of Marine Sciences, CSIC |
| Eva Rifà Rovira | Universitat de Barcelona |
| Emma Valdés Martín | Universitat de Barcelona |
| Víctor Navas Portella | Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona |
| Juan Gancio | Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya |
| Martí Planasdemunt Hospital | Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya |
| Marta Sales Pardo | Universitat Rovira i Virgili |
| Robert Benassai | Universitat Oberta de Catalunya |
| Jorge Mampel Danta | Universitat de Les Illes Balears |
| Paula Rodríguez Sánchez | Universidad Rey Juan Carlos |
| Marie Sellier-Prono | École normale supérieure - Paris |
| Karoline Wiesner | University of Potsdam |
| Alexandra-Anamaria Sorinca | King's College London |
| Manuel Santos Gutierrez | University of Leicester |
| Alvaro Corral | Centre de Recerca Matemàtica |
| Marcos Martinez Jimenez | CSIC |
| Canigó Callau i Boix | CSIC |
Poster and contributed talks
Participants are encouraged to present their research results or open problems in a short talk or a poster format. The poster boards are A0 format (vertical orientation).
- Deadline for NEW abstract submission: September 7, 2025
- Resolutions: September 10, 2025
registration
You will be asked to create a CRM web user account before registering to the activity through the following link (please note that it will be necessary to fill in both the personal and academic requested information in the web user intranet):
CRM USER CREATION
Once you have created your CRM user, you can sign in on the activity web page to complete your registration or click on the following link.
REGISTER
Registration fee 210 € includes attendance to all the courses, seminars, and activities of the school, gala dinner, coffee breaks and lunch.
INVOICE/PAYMENT INFORMATION
IF YOUR INSTITUTION COVERS YOUR REGISTRATION FEE: Please note that, in case your institution is paying for the registration via bank transfer, you will have to indicate your institution details and choose “Transfer” as the payment method at the end of the process.
UPF | UB | UPC | UAB
*If the paying institution is the UPF / UB/ UPC / UAB, after registering, please send an email to comptabilitat@crm.cat with your name and the institution internal reference number that we will need to issue the electronic invoice. Please, send us the Project code covering the registration if needed.
Paying by credit card
IF YOU PAY VIA CREDIT CARD but you need to provide the invoice to your institution to be reimbursed, please note that we will also need you to send an email to comptabilitat@crm.cat providing the internal reference number given by your institution and the code of the Project covering the registration (if necessary).
LODGING INFORMATION
ON-CAMPUS AND BELLATERRA
BARCELONA AND OFF-CAMPUS
acknowledgement
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For inquiries about this event please contact the Scientific Events Coordinator Ms. Núria Hernández at nhernandez@crm.cat
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