ICSP is dedicated to making complexity science research in economics and policy accessible, understandable, and applicable.
The Institute for Complexity Science and Policy (ICSP) was founded to bridge the gap between cutting-edge research in complexity science and its applications in economics and policy. We do not generate new research; instead, we curate, discuss, and make accessible the growing body of work in these fields.
We maintain a comprehensive, searchable database of research papers, books, and reports at the intersection of complexity science, economics, and policy. Our curated collection spans agent-based modeling, network economics, evolutionary game theory, adaptive governance, and computational methods.
We provide free, open-access teaching materials including lecture slides, PDFs, computational notebooks (Python/R), GitHub repositories, and interactive applications. All materials are licensed under Creative Commons, enabling educators worldwide to use and adapt them.
We host webinars and seminars featuring researchers discussing their work, making complex ideas accessible to broader audiences. These events create dialogue between academic researchers, policy practitioners, and students.
We connect researchers, educators, policymakers, and students interested in complexity approaches to economic and policy challenges. Our platform facilitates collaboration and knowledge exchange across disciplines and institutions.
Traditional economic models often treat economies as equilibrium systems with representative agents. Complexity science offers alternative frameworks that recognize economies and policy systems as complex adaptive systems—characterized by heterogeneous agents, network effects, emergent phenomena, and path dependence.
These insights have profound implications for policy design, from financial regulation to climate policy, from innovation systems to urban planning. ICSP exists to make this research accessible to those who can apply it.
The economy is not a machine, but an ecology. Policy design must account for the emergent, adaptive, and interconnected nature of economic and social systems.
We envision a world where policymakers, economists, and researchers have ready access to complexity science insights and tools. By making this knowledge freely available and understandable, we hope to contribute to better-informed policy decisions and more effective economic institutions.
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