A summary of opportunities for mathematics in multidisciplinary research identified by the recent NETIAM workshops has highlighted the benefits of using mathematics in multidisciplinary research at an early stage.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Mathematics and the formulation of unexplored research challenges

The NETIAM project has used mathematics as a tool to integrate the approaches of science from many disciplines. New theoretical and computing techniques, and collaborative formulation of unexplored research challenges, enable mathematics to play a vital part in the research process much earlier than previously. This novel project has linked multidisciplinary teams under four themes covering complex problems of sociology, economics, manufacturing and natural sciences. The project has identified three underpinning mathematical methodologies and eleven diverse application areas for multidisciplinary research, and it has examined the infrastructures that are required to support such activity.

The European integration of expertise that has occurred in NETIAM has increased the potential for dissemination and application of research results by overcoming existing intellectual and administrative fragmentation. In total, 125 researchers of many different disciplines from 15 countries have participated in the workshops, and many hundreds more have been reached as part of the project’s dissemination initiatives. Through ongoing vision and well organised collaboration, the NETIAM project has provided a benchmark for the use of mathematics in the formulation of unexplored multidisciplinary research challenges in a wide range of areas.

As a direct result of NETIAM there are now plans for a new initiative, Unleashing Mathematics, which will raise the multidisciplinary profile of mathematics across European industry and society.

Four key themes

NETIAM has five participating organisations, from five EU Member States and is coordinated by the Smith Institute (United Kingdom). They have held thematic workshops on the following areas:

• Modelling criminality in the urban environment
• Modelling the business environment
• Visualization and simulation of materials
• Complexity in modelling proteins and interfaces at the molecular level.

The themes were chosen by the partners for their challenging interdisciplinarity and their emerging opportunities for using novel mathematics. They have demonstrated how, by working at a European level, mathematics can provide a common language with which to approach multidisciplinary research.

A fifth capstone workshop drew on the work of the thematic workshops and proposed an integrated summary of topics, methodologies and consortia for adventurous research activity. New multidisciplinary consortia have since been formed, with mathematics playing a central role, and new proposals have been submitted to the NEST programme to support research in the underpinning themes.

Strategy: Mathematics, industry and society in Europe

Following its five thematically based workshops, the NETIAM Strategy meeting of leading figures from mathematics communities across Europe identified the need for sustained activity to raise awareness and use of mathematics, in industry, government, academic communities and in society generally at all levels. Under the title ‘Unleashing Mathematics’, the project has established a strategic initiative to help deploy the power and flexibility of mathematics for exploiting opportunities for innovation across a broad spectrum of industry and society. The use of mathematics will be a crucial element in achieving the European Union’s ambition to become the world’s most dynamic knowledge-based economy.

The full report is available to download.