Professor Steven Bishop, PhD, DSc

Complex Systems, Nonlinear dynamics, Chaos

Within UCL I am part of a major EPSRC funded project ENFOLD. ENFOLD is a multidisciplinary, five year modelling project funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Science Research Council spanning seven UCL departments. ENFOLD addresses problems arising from the fact that global systems tend to be treated in isolation from one another. Their characteristically unexpected dynamics are thus due to the aspects of coupling and integration between them that are all too often ignored. To demonstrate these dynamics and develop appropriate policy responses, ENFOLD will study four related global systems: trade, migration, security and development aid. Integrated and coupled models will be developed, whose dynamics can be described in the language of complexity theory, including chaos, turbulence, bifurcations, catastrophes, and phase transition.

Models will be developed to inform global policy makers about future events. Several UK government departments as well as global businesses are partners in this project.

For more information follow the link to CASA website.

Currently most of my time is taken up with some major European projects. The first of these is Global System Dynamics and Policy, which aims to see what mathematics and further tools are required to support policy making decisions. This project, known by the acronym GSDP, builds on an earlier project; GSD. For more information see the links below.

I am also the coordinator for a FET Flagship project named FuturICT.

The FuturICT Flagship proposal intends to unify hundreds of the best scientists in Europe in a 10 year 1 billion EUR program to explore social life on earth and everything it relates to. Its goal is to understand human societies and their interaction within and across the multiple entangled layers of the earths social, economic and environmental systems through the application of revolutionary advances in data gathering and processing technologies, and to give to individuals, organizations and governments access to expert knowledge supporting their decisions and policies.

My previous research interests spanned a broad variety of topics motivated mainly by problems in engineering dynamics. Identifying instabilities in nonlinear dynamical systems forms a running theme with particular emphasis on parametrically excited continuous systems and the interesting phenomena found in non-smooth systems such as those involving repeated impacts. Previous research areas have included the control of chaos and chaotic synchronisation but additionally the concepts of nonlinear dynamics have been applied to study ship capsize, the spread of fires in rooms, the stability of electronic phase-locked loops and other physical problems of practical interest. More recently a discrete approach has been applied to consider the dynamics and morphology of sand dunes. Some further information can be found here.

Other Links:

 

Publications on UCL Database