What is the Global X-Network?

What:

The X-Center Network is a global community of multi disciplinary researchers & practitioners (mathematicians, environmental systems scientists, economists, business operations researchers, psychologists, professors, sociologists) from Austria, Finland, Germany, UK, Japan, Korea, France, Singapore and the US who have joined forces to build tools for decision makers and to research uncertainties, complexities and extreme events and their impact on human systems. The current key research themes are:

• Extreme events
• Uncertainty
• Complexity gap management
• Resilience indexes
•  Social Mood
• Development of the  “Theory of Surprise”
• Resilient business models

The approaches and status of these research themes will be outlined below in the descriptions for each of the X-Centers in the network.

When/Where: 

The X-Center Network was formed in May of  2012 in California USA to bring together a global community from many different fields. Current members of the X-Center Network are:

X-Center Vienna, X-Center Helsinki, X-Center Hamburg, X-Center Japan (FoXc-J), X-Center USA, Steven’s Institute of Technology, Center for Complex Systems & Enterprises.

Discussion are in process with Singapore, Ministry of Development and Seoul Science and Technology Policy Institute (STEPI)

Why:

Uncertainty is increasing, but decisions have to be made daily. Increasing complexity and the greater rate of change in the global economic system is creating a challenging planning environment dominated by uncertainty. The systemic nature of the global environment is so complex that it is unrealistic to assume we will have sufficient information to reduce uncertainty. Traditional planning methods are not powerful enough for this environment. The X-Center Network’s goal is to provide  research, knowledge, tools and methodologies to help decision makers make those difficult decisions, determine new paths and build resilience to weather uncertain times ahead.

How:

The X-Center Network provides the following to its members:

Membership in an international network of extreme event research centers and scholars
Presently, there are X-Centers established in Austria, Finland, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and the United States, with discussions underway in Germany and Singapore for new X-Centers in these countries.  This gives every member Center immediate contacts for joint projects in these geographic regions.

Access to information on X-events
Each X-Center may participate in the annual X-Center global symposium, receive the X-Network newsletter, gain access to the X-Network library of materials on extreme events, and be represented and post on the X-Network web site.

Collaboration with other X-event scholars
One of the principal aims of the X-Network is to keep close track of the various projects each X-Center is engaged in and circulate this information on a regular basis to all members of the X-Network. This also includes identifying specific researchers in each project, so that contact among X-Centers can be amplified. In this manner, scholars in one X-Center can identify investigators in other X-Center with whom they can initiate appropriate collaboration efforts. In short, The X-Network serves as a kind of “switchboard” to connect researchers around the world who should know each other–but don’t.