Key Information
About the content
To learn how complexity and uncertainty influence and constrain our decisions.
Our world seems to ever become more complex and uncertain. Future leaders must be able to act under these conditions. This course provides you with the broad scientific background necessary to develop yourself into one of the future’s key decision makers. First, this course will address the core concepts of complexity and uncertainty. Next, guest lecturers will related sub-fields. Finally, relating this all back together in case studies about financial stability and city development will conclude the course.
Prerequisite
Anyone who needs to make decisions in a complex and uncertain context (e.g. managers and project coordinators). The course will be taught at undergraduate level. Basic knowledge of economic, financial institutions, mathematics and logic will be helpful.
Syllabus
- Complex Systems
- Fundamental Uncertainty
- Graph Theory and Networks
- Emergent Behaviour
- Agent-Based Modelling
- Evolutionary Dynamics
- Cellular Automata
- Self-Organization
- Path dependence and complexity in History
- Decision making under Uncertainty, Heuristics and Biases
- Entrepreneurship
- Financial Stability and Crises
- Growth and Development of Cities
Instructors
Lex Hoogduin
I am professor at the university of Groningen (Complexity and Uncertainty). I have also a number of supervisory functions and have been advisor to the first president of the European Central Bank.
Content Designer

The University of Groningen (abbreviated as UG; Dutch: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, abbreviated as RUG) is a public research university in the city of Groningen in the Netherlands. The university was founded in 1614 and is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands as well as one of its largest. Since its inception more than 200,000 students have graduated. It is a member of the distinguished international Coimbra Group of European universities.
In April 2013, according to the results of the International Student Barometer, the University of Groningen, for the third time in a row, has been voted the best University of the Netherlands. In 2014 the university celebrated its 400th anniversary.
The University of Groningen has ten faculties, nine graduate schools, 27 research centres and institutes, and more than 175 degree programmes.
Platform

FutureLearn is a massive open online course (MOOC) learning platform founded in December 2012.
It is a company launched and wholly owned by The Open University in Milton Keynes, England. It is the first UK-led massive open online course learning platform, and as of March 2015 included 54 UK and international University partners and unlike similar platforms includes four non-university partners: the British Museum, the British Council, the British Library and the National Film and Television School.