Center for Complexity is a place for transdisciplinary collaboration and innovation, informed by global events and creative practices, founded to benefit scholars, practitioners, a diverse range of partners, and the RISD community.

CfC operates through research and practice within Research Core A: Systems of Care and Research Core B: The Polycene. We work directly with community and industry partners and collaborators in research and the design of facilitation and intervention strategies specific to the needs of those groups and institutions. We deliver skill development and capacity building engagements around strategic design, insight, and innovation through our Strategic Design Programs initiatives. Within these spheres of operation, we conduct intermingled projects of varying length and intensity. These efforts enrich — and are enriched by — our Pedagogy, Field Building, and Public Programming work in forms such as courses, symposia, lectures, and events.

We operate with an interdisciplinary core practice team whose capacity is augmented by a network of fellows, contractors, and student research assistants. We further benefit from a network of collaborators who act as participants, visiting experts, studio critics, and partners. To sustain these networks, we build consortia of partners and collaborators around our research interests. By acting as a stable point of contact, we can allow students to move in and out of these topic areas, as they weave them into their wider RISD education.

We maintain relationships with a broad range of collaborators, which provides opportunities for RISD students to engage with groups and individuals around the world. RISD students move on in their education and professional development to help build and sustain a global community of practice. We provide continuity of relationships and help the students deepen their knowledge, while acting as stewards for their insight when the work continues after they graduate.

In turn, the body of work produced at RISD has fed the development of projects and pedagogy across the planet. CfC staff have been invited to deliver lectures and master classes around the world. Student, alumni, staff, and faculty work has been featured on the national and international stage. Our research and student projects have been used by practitioners to inspire their thinking about what’s possible and necessary to address complex challenges.

These reciprocal networks enable our small team to make big contributions through dialogues of critique and design research that help our collaborators and partners to better understand the complexity of the challenges they face and to help navigate and embrace that complexity rather than deny or avoid it.