Complex Systems at TMU

The graduate program in Complex Systems, offering MSc and PhD degrees, is offered by the Department of Physics at Toronto Metropolitan University. The program is one of the few graduate-level programs in North America in this growing field.

The TMU Department of Physics hosts four research groups in the Complex Systems field, including research on living cells, infrastructure networks, infections, and brain dynamics. Other departments at TMU have additional groups carrying out research in the Complex Systems field.

'Complex' Systems can be defined (external link)  as systems "composed of many components which may interact with each other" that exhibit phenomena including "nonlinearity, emergence, spontaneous order, adaptation, and feedback loops".

The phenomenon of 'emergence' in a Complex System is the formation of properties, patterns, or behaviours from the interaction of the system components, with these properties, patterns, or behaviours absent without interactions between the system components. Emergent behaviour is not present if the system components are isolated, and thus emerges from the interactions.

Because the emergent phenomena that characterize Complex Systems are not present when the components are isolated, Complex Systems are often described as more than the sum of their parts.