NUSC

NUSC | Network and Urban Systems Centre

The Networks and Urban Systems Centre (NUSC) discovers, applies and shares knowledge to help communities connect and prosper.

Centre Co-Director
Research institute

Business research

Faculty

Faculty of Business

Networks and Urban Systems Centre


A research centre with multi-disciplinary expertise exploring the expanding frontiers of urban challenges and opportunities to improve quality of life, competitiveness and sustainability.

About us: our vision

Cities are engines of economic growth. They partner with industries, organisations and other urban centres, creating complex networks that exchange information, build capacities, expand resources and enhance revenues. Yet people in urban communities face a variety of complex challenges, from changing demographics and the impacts of climate change to resource crises and global competition. Acknowledging that no single approach, technical or otherwise, is enough to address these issues, the Networks and Urban Systems Centre (NUSC) brings together multi-disciplinary expertise to explore the expanding frontiers of urban challenges. Our mission is to improve the quality of life, competitiveness and sustainability of urban communities in the UK and around the world.

We aim to:

  • Drive competitiveness and sustainability across production systems, urban systems, business ecosystems, business models and global value chains.
  • Embrace an interdisciplinary approach, deploying frontier methods including advanced quantitative and qualitative approaches.
  • Engage in international academic collaboration, in leading projects, conferences and journals.
  • Develop our members’ academic careers, with a strong focus on our PhD students and early career researchers.
  • Provide training for academics and professionals and conduct commissioned work.

Our impact on the world

Our core objective is to make a positive impact on the world by discovering, applying and sharing knowledge that can improve connections within and between communities, enabling them to prosper over the long term. This means finding ways to organise and develop systems that will provide sustainable benefits over the long haul, in place of short-term expediency. The main societal challenges addressed by the Networks and Urban Systems Centre are:

  • effective and sustainable organisational and inter-organisational designs.
  • effective and sustainable distributed production systems, clusters and value chains.
  • healthy and high-quality urban ecosystems.
  • business models for technologically transformed social systems.

Through the application of simulation and modelling, NUSC seeks to contribute several UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Examples include:

  • Our pioneering work to map global value chains using rigorous quantitative approaches, which supports Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure (SDG9), as does our research on home- and hybrid-working structures for fostering collaboration.
  • Our explorations of less environmentally harmful transport and tourism sectors, along with research into ways to reinvigorate the high street, which support Sustainable Cities and Communities (SDG11).
  • Our support for Responsible Consumption and Production (SDG12) through our research into the factors motivating people’s adoption of EVs (electric vehicles).

Who we are

An interdisciplinary approach

NUSC draws on a wide range of specialisms, including mathematics, physics, engineering, computer science, sociology, psychology and organisational behaviour, economics, operations research, management and logistics. At the same time, our members employ diverse multiple and mixed methods, from social network analysis, network science and complexity theory to linear programming, systems dynamics, machine learning and case study and narrative analytic approaches. Our access to the advanced, rigorous methods, alongside alternative perspectives, enables us to address complex challenges facing urban communities. And, regardless of background, all our researchers share a passion for developing effective and sustainable social systems.

Partners

We are constantly looking to expand our academic and industrial collaboration network and open to different formats of collaborations such as joint PhD projects, research proposals or consulting. Among higher education institutions, our current UK collaborators include the Universities of Cambridge, Exeter, Durham, Loughborough, Liverpool, Manchester and Oxford, while our overseas academic partners range from the Universities of Amsterdam and Groningen to Harvard and the South China University of Technology. We also engage in industry and community consultancy projects with major organisations, such as Unilever, Ernst and Young, Northern Trust, South East London Chambers of Commerce, NHS, Defra, Nesta, Pensions Regulator, the Work Foundation and the Institute of Transport and Logistics.

Funding

The work of the Networks and Urban Systems Centre is supported by the Economic and Social Research Council and EU Horizon, among others. We also generate income through consultancies for a range of academic, private, public and NGO partners.

Our research

Tools for seeing the world better

NUSC members test and apply the very latest ‘frontier’ methods, be it social network analytics, advanced systems dynamics or sophisticated AI-based and topic modelling. Our approach to researching networks and urban systems echoes the development of astronomy: just as progressive improvements in telescope design allowed scientists see more of the universe, so advances in the tools and techniques for exploring human relationships are helping our researchers to ‘see’ more of the social world. Most appropriate, given our proximity to the Greenwich Observatory!

Our research can be grouped in five key, interlinked strands:

  • Production systems
  • Urban ecosystems
  • Business ecosystems
  • Digital business models
  • Global value chains

Production systems

An example of research in production systems is a project identifying the competitiveness of several Italian regional clusters active in the footwear industry. The project, integrating different methodologies and data collection techniques, focused on the complexities associated with the management of a diverse set of interorganisational relations. Another piece of work examined the dynamics of innovation in the London Tech-City industrial cluster from multiple perspectives, looking at the behaviour of individual software developers, the activities of firms and what was happening at the regional level.

Urban ecosystems

Work in this theme includes research for the Dubai Government to transform benchmarking capabilities at 11 government organisations. This led to enhanced performance, improved efficiency and significant cost savings. A further example was the combination of ethnography and social media network analysis in a Peabody-funded project studying resident attitudes to urban regeneration efforts in Thamesmead.

Business ecosystems

The business ecosystems theme explores the conditions needed for sustaining innovation and entrepreneurship. An example is the development of a technique to understand how social networks in a workplace can promote innovation and performance. The results were used by 300 companies, including large corporates in UK and US, and have transformed human resources management practices. Another example is the €3.9 million EU 'FACET' project on how those in tourism and leisure sector can gain practical knowledge and experience in the transition from linear to circular practices.

Digital business models

This research strand looks at business models for technologically transformed social systems. Examples of this work include projects on cryptocurrency entrepreneurs, distributed finance and vehicle sharing schemes.

Global value chains

Here, we examine distributed and overlapping production systems, such as clusters and supply and global value chains. Important work in this area, are our new methodologies for quantifying value chains, identifying points at which most value is added.

Publications/Output

View all pulications.

Teaching and training

Members of the Networks and Urban Systems Centre provide taught courses on transport and logistics, innovation, mathematical modelling and business analytics to the business and management programmes for undergraduates and postgraduates. Meanwhile, we proactively encourage and support PhD supervision and training, and systematically mentor early and mid-career colleagues.

NUSC also offers a range of external training opportunities for health professionals, management consultants, digital scientists, educationalists and community professionals. In addition, since 2007 we have hosted annual, week-long winter and summer schools in network methods aimed at early career researchers from other higher education institutions, where we cover introductory and advanced research techniques, including frontier methods.

News and events

NUSC is an active academic research centre. Our members frequently speak in major international scientific conferences (e.g., Academy of Management, European Group on Organisational Studies, International Network for Social Network Analysis), publish in top international journals such as American Journal of Sociology, Organization Science, Organizational Research Methods and serve on the editorial boards of the Forum for Social Economics, Sustainability, Journal of Tourism Futures, Sustainable Manufacturing and Service Economics, International Journal of Tourism Cities, the executive committees of the UK Social Networks Association and the European Social Networks Conference among many others.

We also organise regular seminars acquainting staff with others’ research and interests as well as visiting presentations from world-leading experts in the field. In addition, we host prestigious international and conferences and workshops. Recent examples include:

  • Distributed Finance Workshop, Oct 2022
  • GameBall Rally: Web3 and Blockchain Workshops, Oct 2023
  • NUSC Summer School in Social Network Analysis, July 2023
  • European Social Networks Conference, Sept 2022
  • Academy of International Business (UKI) Conference, April 2021
  • Smart Urban Policy Futures – International workshop, held annually

At NUSC, I get to meet other specialists with advanced skills and new approaches. It’s collegial and intellectually stimulating. And it feels like we’re making a difference.

- Bruce Cronin, Professor of Economic Sociology, and Leader of the Networks and Urban Systems Centre

Our Experts

Directors

Deputy Director

Experts

Dr Yasser Abdallah

Lecturer in Business. External Engagement Co-Lead, EBC.

Professor Dotun Adebanjo

Professor of Supply Chain Management

Dr Abdul Ali

Senior Lecturer in Operations and Supply Chain Management

Parissa Baig

Lecturer in Strategic Entrepreneurship

Dr Alistair Bogaars

Senior Lecturer in Project Management

Dr Karen Brickman

Head of School for Business, Operations and Strategy

Dr Kim Bui

Senior Lecturer in International Business

Jin Chan

Professor of Sustainable Strategy, Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Dr Guodong Cheng

Lecturer in Business Management

Professor J. Andres Coca-Stefaniak

Associate Head (Research & Knowledge Exchange), School of Business, Operations and Strategy

Dr Francisca Da Gama

Lecturer in International Business

Ekoua Jose-Maria Danho

Lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Dr Bálint Diószegi

Lecturer in Network Science

Dr Carlos F.A. Arranz

Lecturer in Business Operations

Dr Nicky Garsten

Associate Professor in Non-Profit and Business Communications and Co-Leader of the Personal Professional Development Curriculum Redesign in the Business Faculty

Dr Sara Gorgoni

Associate Professor in Economics

Dr Ilaria Guandalini

Senior Lecturer in Business Management, Programme Director of Executive MBA

Dr Andrew Hansen-Addy

Lecturer Business Management

Dr Shoaib Haq

Senior Lecturer

Dr Ye Hou

Lecturer in Business Information Systems

Dr Zheyuan Hu

Senior Lecturer in Business and Management

Dr Jingxi Huang

Lecturer in Strategy and Sustainability

Quang (James) Huy Duong

Lecturer in Business Operations

Professor Petros Ieromonachou

Associate Dean, Research & Knowledge Exchange

Dr Abdullah Ijaz

Lecturer in Business Management

Dr Jie Jiang

Lecturer in Business Operations (MBA)

Dr Sathees Kunjuthamby

Senior Lecturer in Business Management

Natasha Lawlor-Morrison

Lecturer in Strategy and Leadership

Dr Jiawei Li

Lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Dr Yan Li

Lecturer in Strategic Project Management

Dr Anju Maharjan

Lecturer in International Business

Dr Azar MahmoumGonbadi

Lecturer in Business Operations and Supply Chain Management

Dr Di Mao

Lecturer in International Business Strategy

Raluca Marinciu

Teaching Fellow

Professor Alastair Morrison

Research Professor

Dr Sylvester Mujakperuo

Co Programme Leader, MBA Global Senior Lecturer in Business

Dr Grace O'Rourke

Lecturer of Strategy and Sustainability

Dr Oyinkansola Odunjo

Lecturer, Business Management

Dr Anusha Pappu

Academic Portfolio Lead- Strategy and Senior Lecturer in Business and Management

Dr Anna Piazza

Lecturer in Economic Sociology

Dr Vladimir Popov

Research Assistant

Dr Sadiye Eylul (Ellie) Sadanoglu

Programme Leader MA International Business; Senior Lecturer in International Business Strategy

Dr Antoinette Saint Hilaire

Senior Lecturer, Management

Daria Samatoina

Lecturer in Strategy and Leadership

Dr Jun Yuan (Julian) Seng

Lecturer in International Business

Dr Mohit Kumar Singh

Lecturer in Transport and Logistics Management

Dr Fiona Sun

Lecturer in Business Administration/Management

Dr Wenxian (Hetty) Sun

Associate Head of the Executive Business Centre - Research & Knowledge Exchange

Aaron Tan

Senior Teaching Fellow

Liting Tan

Teaching Fellow in Project Management

Martina Testori

Lecturer in Economic Sociology

Dr John Tull

Lecturer in Business Management

Dr Srinidhi Vasudevan

Senior Lecturer in Business Management

Dr Lucien von Schomberg

Senior Lecturer in Creativity & Innovation

Dr Haining Wang

Lecturer in Business Analytics

Dr Mingchu Wang

Lecturer in International Business

Dr Shuai Zhang

Senior Lecturer in Business Strategy

Events