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Complex Systems Studies: Unravelling the complexity of societal challenges

As tomorrow’s society will be even more complex than today’s Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ also wants to educate students in this important scientific field. Therefore we offer them the opportunity to complete the new Master's profile Complex Systems.

Short description

It's an interdisciplinary profile for ambitious students from different Master’s programmes, who want to work on modelling solutions within the field of Complex Systems. The profile gives the students the opportunity to broaden their view and knowledge from an interdisciplinary angle and widens their opportunities for further development. This profile can be fitted into the Master’s programme and does not require additional EC’s. Students will receive a Complex Systems certificate.

How to apply

Interested? Please contact the coordinator of your master’s programme for approval. You can apply by sending an email to the profile coordinator (see list below) of your own Graduate School.

Description and aims

The Master’s profile Complex Systems is an interdisciplinary profile for students who are interested to broaden their knowledge and expertise within the field of Complex Systems. In this research field societal issues, such as a financial crisis, a sudden epidemic or climate change are studied from a quantitative modelling perspective. Students will get an understanding of the various models used in the complexity field and the behaviour (i.e. transitions, predictability) of these models. 
The aim of the Complex Systems Profile is for students to develop or improve their

• affinity for quantitative approaches in order to address societal issues,
• ability to build models that are amenable to quantitative approaches,
• familiarity with standard (quantitative) methods in the toolbox for analysing complex systems, and
• ability to work in interdisciplinary teams.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the Master’s profile the student

• is able to recognise the complex systems aspects when confronted with a societal problem,
• is able to develop models of complex systems and/o has a good overview of model-building for complex systems,
• has a good overview of the methods in the complex systems toolbox, can apply them to models and extract quantitative results, and
• communicate/explain complex-systems models and methods to (interdisciplinary) teammates.

Programme

The Master’s profile comprises 30 EC and consists of the following parts:

• Two electives (7.5 EC each) from the following courses (one of these electives need to be from 1-3 below, which are termed as core courses for Complex Systems profile):
  1. Introduction to Complex Systems ()
  2. Tipping Phenomena in the Climate-Society System ()
  3. Computational Aspects of Machine Learning ()
  4. A Complex Systems labelled course listed under a master programme that is different from the one to which the student is admitted (see list below)
     Note: some programmes may require one of their primary elective courses, labelled as Complex Systems course to be taken; the student cannot count them as primary elective as well as Complex Systems master profile courses. More information can be found in the specific programme description section of the Education and Examination Regulations.
• A Research Project on a Complex Systems topic (15 EC; Osiris Code ), for which the focus should be on interdisciplinary aspects and at least two supervisors from two different departments/faculties must be involved.

Labelled Complex System Courses

* Registration via .
† These two courses can only be taken in combination with each other since individually they are 3.75 EC courses.
For the full list, including courses offered in previous years, please refer to the official Education and Examination Regulations.

Participating Master’s programmes

For students more information can be found on the Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ student site. Check the following participating programmes:

• Multidisciplinary Economics

More information

Students from Graduate School of Geosciences, please contact dr. Arie Staal via a.staal@uu.nl.

Students from Graduate School of Life Sciences, please contact Prof. dr. Kirsten ten Tusscher via K.H.W.J.tenTusscher@uu.nl.

Students from Graduate School of Natural Sciences, please contact dr. Robbin Bastiaansen via ³¦´Ç´Ç°ù»å¾±²Ô²¹³Ù´Ç°ù.³¦²õ​p°ª³Ü³Ü.²Ô±ô.

Students from Graduate School of Social Sciences and Humanities, please contact Prof. dr. ir. Vincent Buskens via V.Buskens@uu.nl.

Students from Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ School of Economics, please contact dr. Elena Fumagalli via E.Fumagalli@uu.nl.

Students from other Graduate Schools, please contact dr. Robbin Bastiaansen via ³¦´Ç´Ç°ù»å¾±²Ô²¹³Ù´Ç°ù.³¦²õ​p°ª³Ü³Ü.²Ô±ô.

How to apply

Interested? Please contact the coordinator of your master’s programme for approval. You can apply by sending an email to the profile coordinator (see list above) of your own Graduate School.