The New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI) is an independent research and educational institution. We study how interactions within a system lead to its behavioral patterns, and how the system interacts with its environment. Our mathematical tools transcend the boundaries of physical, biological and social sciences, as well as engineering, management, and medicine.

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Courses in Complexity

Join us for a two week long summer or winter course on complexity

Professional Programs

Gain insight into using ideas from complex systems in your business

Do you have a complex problem?

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Psychology's Ghosts with Jerome Kagan

Psychology research is haunted by the “ghosts" of unfounded assumptions and flawed methodologies. After a half century career as a pre-eminent researcher and author, Prof. Jerome Kagan challenges us to go back to the basics, to re-evaluate the methods we use to collect data and the theories that we base our conclusions on.

Wikimania 2014

Prof. Bar-Yam gave a keynote talk at Wikimania 2014.

World Food Crisis

Drought, speculation, and ethanol conversion poised to trigger an imminent global food crisis.

The Science of Peace

Switzerland and Yugoslavia both have separated cultural, linguistic and religious groups; they are not integrated well-mixed societies. Surprisingly, the main difference between them seems to be whether the boundaries are in the right place or not.

Beyond Big Data

In order to identify effective interventions in real world complex systems, it is necessary to use methods that determine which information is important. We describe how this paradigm shift happened in physics, and how it can happen in social sciences.

NECSI Work on Catastrophes

Hurricane Sandy has caused substantial loss of life and billions of dollars in property damage. NECSI work shows how to engineer resilient systems and anticipate catastrophic events.

Photo by NASA/Getty images

Stopping the Market Crash

NECSI research played a key role in stopping the market collapse in March 2009, as Congressman Barney Frank, Chairman of the Financial Services Committee, took action to stop the collapse using NECSI recommendations.

The Science of Ethnic Violence

NECSI has developed a model to predict the locations of violence from the spatial distribution of ethnic groups.

The Science of Global Crises

NECSI responds to increasing global vulnerabilities and cascading worldwide crises

Healthcare Costs: the Road Map

Decision makers in all sectors see a mounting crisis in delivering affordable healthcare. The health-care system is clearly not working: How can we fix it? In this series, we provide eight scientifically-based steps toward reducing costs and improving quality.

The Future of New Orleans

NECSI President, Professor Yaneer Bar-Yam, tours the Army Corps of Engineers’ efforts to protect New Orleans from hurricanes.

The Evolution of Cooperation

Evolution through natural selection is intensely competitive, yet, altruistic cooperation is remarkably common. It is found in social insects, human society, and even cells of multicellular organisms. Why individuals cooperate is one of the central puzzles of evolutionary theory. Here we describe advances in understanding the evolution of cooperation.

* Movies Mobile App Released

Researchers at the New England Complex Systems Institute have used network theory to put together a network of the top 500 movies.

Making Things Work

Making Things Work describes how science can help solve the problems facing us today in healthcare, education, military conflict, ethnic violence and terrorism, and third world development.

Twitter Rising

The Transition from Search to Social Media

History: NECSI and the 2004 Red Sox Parade

Researchers at NECSI who use computers to simulate crowds, had an opportunity to see the real thing in action during the 2004 the Red Sox parade. The parade, reported by the Boston Globe to have attracted 3.2 million people, was one of the largest crowd events in Boston history.