Towards consensus on a unifying treatment of emergence and systems far from equilibrium.

我们周围的大多数自然系统并不处于平衡状态。事实上，与周围环境没有相互作用的封闭平衡系统是一个真正的例外。电流流经真实世界的系统，例如：交通系统、生物运输或电子产品中的电荷载体。地球不断地暴露在宇宙辐射之下。植物、动物和生态系统生长，个体死亡或出生。人造结构往往会退化和腐烂。西方世界的金融基础设施远非对外部和内部冲击无动于衷。在工业应用中，经常需要控制材料的流动并改变它们的状态，形成为特定目的量身定做的稳定结构。了解流体动力学非平衡现象对于喷墨打印很重要，了解量子系统中的非平衡过程可以提高计算机存储元件等现代技术的性能。在控制等离子体方面的进步最终可能是我们社会面临的能源挑战的一个重要贡献。与此密切相关的是，这种系统通常表现出紧急行为，交通拥堵是由个体司机相对理性的行为“产生”的。在物理系统中可以看到大规模的关联和自组织，从微观成分(电子、分子)的小规模相互作用中看起来又是随机出现的。仅从微观层面研究元素往往不可能预测这些宏观结构，相反，微妙的集体机制正在发挥作用，至少可以说，人们对这些过程知之甚少。在这一领域取得进展是一项真正具有挑战性的事业，可能需要不同学科的研究人员长达十年左右的协同行动。我们在这里提出的网络旨在让英国社区为迎接这一挑战做好准备。没有一门学科可以单独解决，更不用说回答非平衡系统或涌现中的公开问题了。在很大程度上，人们甚至不清楚什么是正确的问题。我们的建议是，利用英国现有但分散的专业知识，共同定义哪些途径是最有希望的，以及英国研究人员在未来5到10年应该专注于什么类型的研究。本提案中考虑的非平衡系统代表了不同的科学领域，这些领域往往因其独特的术语、方法论以及它们可能导致的不同实际应用而分开。这是取得进展的障碍，我们的网络将有助于克服这一障碍。与此同时，主题的多样性和英国社区的广泛专业知识是一种优势。该网络中的研究人员和学科的广度将确保，如果存在非常不同的现象之间的类比，将确定它们之间的相似之处，并将它们进行综合，以帮助采取更有针对性的方法。这将有助于解决具体问题，但也将提炼出可在理论和实验中利用的一般原则。我们提议的核心是系统动力学的统一方面，如结构和模式的自发发展、大规模故障的动力学以及对强大驱动力和冲击的反应。我们提议了一系列不同的网络活动：相互交流以发起协作、有重点的和全体会议，我们将开展广泛的公众推广计划。我们方法的关键是一些“协同加速会议”，模仿EPSRC所谓的“理想工厂”的概念。这些会议将把参与者带出他们的舒适区，引导他们跳出框框思考，利用现有的全部专业知识产生新的想法。一个仔细迭代的过程将引导和关注这些想法，最终导致一个能够找到关键挑战和最有希望的方法的过程。

Most natural systems around us are not in equilibrium. Indeed, closed equilibrium systems with no interaction with their surrounding are a true exception. Currents run through real-world systems, for example: traffic systems, biological transport or charge carriers in electronics. The Earth is constantly exposed to cosmic radiation. Plants, animals and ecosystems grow, individuals die or are born. Man-made structures tend to degrade and decay. The financial infrastructure of the western world is far from being inert to external and intrinsic shocks. In industrial applications there is often a need to control the flow of materials and to change their states, forming stable structures tailored for specific purposes. Understanding hydrodynamic phenomena off-equilibrium is important for e.g ink-jet printing, knowledge of non-equilibrium processes in quantum systems can enhance the performance of modern-day technology such as computer memory elements. Progress in controlling plasmas finally may be an important contribution to energy challenges facing our society.Closely related, such systems often show emergent behaviour, a traffic jam `emerges' from relatively rational behaviour of individual drivers. Large-scale correlation and self-organisation is seen in physical systems, again `emerging' seemingly at random from small-scale interaction of microscopic constituents (electrons, molecules). It is often impossible to predict these macroscopic structures from studying the elements at the micro-scale alone, instead subtle collective mechanisms are at work, and these processes are only poorly understood as yet to say the least. Making progress in this area is a truly challenging enterprise, likely to require up to a decade or so of concerted action by researchers across a variety of disciplines. The network we propose here aims to prepare the UK community to meet this challenge. No discipline alone can address, let alone answer the open questions in non-equilibrium systems or emergence. To a large extent it is not even clear what the right questions are. Our proposal is to use the existing, but scattered expertise in the UK to collectively define what avenues are the most promising, what type of research UK researchers should be focusing on in the next 5-10 years. Non-equilibrium systems considered in this proposal represent diverse fields of science which are often separated by their unique terminology, methodology as well as by different practical applications they may lead to. This is a barrier towards making progress, our network will help to overcome this blockage. At the same time the diversity of the theme and the broad expertise in the UK community are a strength. The breadth of researchers and disciplines in the network will ensure that analogies between very different phenomena will be identified if they are present and that they will be synthesized to aid a more focused approach. This will help to address specific problems, but also to extract general principles that can be exploited in theory and experiment. At the core of our proposal are unifying aspects of the dynamics for systems far from equilibrium such as spontaneous development of structure and patterns, dynamics of large-scale failures and responses to strong driving forces and shocksWe propose a portfolio of different networking events: mutual exchanges to initiate collaborations, focused and general meetings and we will run an extensive public outreach programme. Key to our approach are a number of `Synergy Acceleration Sessions', modelled on the EPSRC concept of so-called `Ideas Factories'. These sessions will take participants out of their comfort zones, will guide them to think outside the box and to generate novel ideas, using the full breadth of expertise available. A carefully iterated process will channel and focus these ideas, ultimately leading to a process by which the key challenges and most promising approaches can be found.