About the Centre for Fluid and Complex Systems

The Centre for Fluid and Complex Systems seeks fundamental insight and delivers real-world solutions to complex scientific challenges, wherever they arise, whether in Nature, industry, society... or our imagination. Our mission is to grow fundamental and impactful research to address natural, industrial, and societal problems, using mathematical rigour.

Interdisciplinarity is fully embedded into our pursuit to apply mathematics to real-life problems. Within the Fluid Mechanics research group, research has extended into health, with the modelling of metastatic tumours and cardiac functions, as well as into planetary and astrophysical flows. Experiments in these areas are notoriously difficult to conduct and we are one of a handful of research centres in the world that combines applied mathematics and experimental physics to tackle liquid planetary cores. In the Statistical Physics research group, our research has expanded into complexity science. Our current interdisciplinary strengths involve network science, cultural complexity, biophysics and sociophysics. For example, our work mapping character networks in traditional epic narratives has been highlighted as one of four exemplars in digital humanities of character networks. Our common interest in medieval texts has also enabled us to use computational biophysics and algorithms to explore plant fertility. Our research within the Nonequilibrium in Environment and Engineering Systems research group cuts across the interface of earth sciences, engineering and physics. Motivated by environmental and energy applications, our research includes such topics as contamination and remediation, sediment transport, microfluidics and soil infiltration. The Flow Measurement Technologies research group aims to provide low cost, accurate and validated measurement systems in diverse environments from manufacturing to energy distribution systems.

In addition to our highly interdisciplinary research, our research benefits from an impressive and growing network of commercial, academic and government collaborations across the globe. We are proud to work alongside world-leading experimental and computational facilities such as CNRS-Laboratoire National des Champs Magnetiques Intenses Grenoble (LNCMI), Helmholz Zentrum Dresden-Rosendorf (HZDR), UCLA Spinlab, Warwick, Ecole Polytechnique’s LadhyX, Kalsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysics Observatory, (HSAO, USA).

Our team

We bring together over 50 leading applied mathematicians, statistical physicists, experimentalists, theoreticians, and specialists in scientific computing, with a focus on measuring and predicting complex flow behaviour.