Over the past few decades, complexity has become a hot topic in the sciences and today researchers are using it across a wide variety of domains, from linguistics and cognitive science to business management, finance, and engineering. Complexity theory has the potential to reinvigorate virtually any domain with a fresh perspective and a new set of ideas and methods. Unfortunately, all too often the ideas of complexity theory are shrouded in the complicated physics and mathematics of nonlinear systems making them opaque to many.
It doesn’t have to be like this though, the core concepts of systems and complexity theory can be abstracted away from their specific origins and find universal application in any domain; this is exactly what we are here for, to help those outside of the area gain access to this approach without the weeks, months or even years of hard labour that is often required to make headway. We sift through complexity theory to find the basic, essential ideas. We then structure them and try to make them relevant to the various domains of application.