ENFOLD-ing - Explaining, Modelling, and Forecasting Global Dynamics

我们大多数用于向政策制定者通报未来社会和经济事件的科学都是为当地而不是全球的系统建立的，并且假设这些系统的行为方式相对容易处理，因此对政策举措做出反应。对这种政策制定的成功程度或甚至提供信息的程度的任何审查都会产生一种非常复杂的情况，这种干预充其量只是部分有效，最坏的情况是积极的破坏性。人类决策显示了一个复杂系统的所有特征。我们的许多干预使问题变得更糟，而不是更好，导致经常被引用的指责，即解决方案是问题的一部分。复杂性理论认识到了这种困境。在这个研究项目中，我们将发展新的科学形式，以解决最困难的人类问题：那些涉及全球变化的问题，没有有组织的支持者，其机构在很大程度上被认为是无效的。我们将认为，全球系统往往被孤立地对待，而表征其行为的意想不到的动态是由于它们的耦合和集成而经常被忽视。为了展示这种动态并制定适当的政策反应，我们将研究四个相关的全球系统：贸易，移民，安全（包括犯罪，恐怖主义和军事争端）和发展援助，这往往被确定为这三个单独系统的结果。这种动力学源于耦合的观点表明，为了清楚地了解它们的动力学并更好地理解全球变化，我们需要开发集成和耦合模型，其动力学可以用传统的或可能不那么传统的复杂性理论语言来描述：混沌、湍流、分岔、灾难和相变。我们将开发三种相关的模型：嵌入在类似捕食者-猎物的框架中的空间相互作用模型，该框架在系统行为中产生分支；将位置与流量联系起来的反应扩散模型；以及可以使用类似流行病的扩散过程来解释事件如何相互串联的网络模型。我们将把空间互动模型应用于贸易和移民，反应扩散应用于军事争端和恐怖主义，网络模型应用于国际犯罪。我们将扩展这些模型，以纳入定性新事件的产生，例如国家等新实体的出现，并以不同的方式将它们结合在一起。我们最终将开发一个通用框架，用于跨越许多空间和时间尺度的耦合全球动力学，并适用于其行为可以定量和定性模拟的不同系统。我们的模型将根据我们将在项目期间收集的数据进行校准，并且我们已经知道这些数据以可用的形式存在。我们将开发各种模型，将所有这些想法整合到一个全球情报系统中，向全球决策者通报未来事件。这个系统（我们打算有很多版本）将允许政策制定者思考不可想象的事情，并探索有关我们四个关键全球系统的各种问题：贸易、移民、安全和发展，同时，使全球动态被视为这些系统的耦合。我们将开始在世界其他地区为英国开发这些模式，然后将其扩展到与全球动态相关的所有关键国家和事件。我们的合作伙伴首先是英国政府部门和具有全球影响力的跨国公司，他们将支持这一扩展到全球舞台。该项目将以伦敦大学学院的10个学术学院为基础，涵盖广泛的中心和部门。

Most of our science which is used to inform policy makers about future social and economic events has been built for systems that are local rather than global and are assumed to behave in ways that are relatively tractable and thus responsive to policy initiatives. Any examination of the degree to which such policy-making has been successful or even informative yields a very mixed picture with such interventions being only partly effective at best, and positively disruptive at worst. Human policy-making shows all the characteristics of a complex system. Many of our interventions make problems worse rather than better leading to the oft-quoted accusation that the solution is part of the problem .Complexity theory recognizes this dilemma. In this research programme, we will develop new forms of science which address the most difficult of human problems: those that involve global change where there is no organised constituency and whose agencies are largely regarded as being ineffective. We will argue that global systems tend to be treated in isolation from one another and that the unexpected dynamics that characterises their behaviour is due to their coupling and integration that is all to often ignored. To demonstrate this dynamics and to develop appropriate policy responses, we will study four related global systems: trade, migration, security (which includes crime, terrorism and military disputes) and development aid, which tends to be determined as a consequence of these three individual systems. The idea that this dynamics results from coupling suggests that to get a clear view of their dynamics and a better understanding of global change, we need to develop integrated and coupled models whose dynamics can be described in the conventional and perhaps not so conventional language of complexity theory: chaos, turbulence, bifurcations, catastrophes, and phase transitionsWe will develop three related styles of model: spatial interaction models embedded in predator-prey like frameworks which generate bifurcations in system behaviour, reaction diffusion models that link location to flow, and network models in which epidemic-like diffusion processes can be used to explain how events cascade into one another. We will apply spatial interaction models to trade and migration, reaction diffusion to military disputes and terrorism, and network models to international crime. We will extend these models to incorporate the generation of qualitative new events such as the emergence of new entities e.g. countries, coupling them together in diverse ways. We will ultimately develop a generic framework for a coupled global dynamics that spans many spatial and temporal scales and pertains to different systems whose behaviours can be simulated both quantitatively and qualitatively. Our models will be calibrated to data which we will assemble during the project and which we already know exists in usable form.We will develop various models which incorporate all these ideas into a global intelligence system to inform global policy makers about future events. This system (and we intend there to be many versions of it) will allow policy makers to think the unthinkable and to explore all kinds of what if questions with respect to our four key global systems: trade, migration, security and development, while at the same time, enabling global dynamics to be considered as a coupling of these systems. We will begin developing these models for the UK in terms of the rest of the world but then extend this to embrace all the key countries and events relevant to this global dynamics. Our partners who in the first instance are UK government departments and multinational companies with a global reach will champion this extension to the global arena. The programme will be based on ten academic faculty at UCL spanning a wide range of centres and departments.