Bouffanais’ Research Lab
Applied Complexity Group · Faculty of Science & Global Studies Institute, University of Geneva
Selected Recent Publications
- Social Contagion Drives Collective Consensus Formation on Scale-Free Networks
Savari M, Horsevad N, Kooij RE, Chamanbaz M, Wernli D & Bouffanais R
Scientific Reports (16), 2026. [pdf] [doi] - Simulating Democratic Deliberation: Representing Pluralistic Preferences through Electoral Systems in Multi-Agent LLMs
Faulkner R, Szufa S, Hoyer D, Zhang TJ, Bouffanais R, Leibo JZ & Jin Z
EMNLP 2026, The 2026 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing, Oct 24–29, 2026, Budapest, Hungary, Accepted for Publication. [pdf] [web] - The Environment in Global Health Governance: an Analysis of Environment-Related Resolutions Adopted at the World Health Assembly from 1948 to 2023
Evrard M, Rieckhoff A, Shipton L, Jørgensen PS, Falcone JL, Bouffanais R, Chopard B, Levrat N & Wernli D
The Lancet Planetary Health (9), e103, 2025. [pdf] [doi] - Effects of the Interplay Between Topology and Function of an Integrated Urban Development on Patterns of User Movement
Manivannan A, Chin WCB, Gopalakrishnan S, Wong D, Schroepfer T & Bouffanais R
Scientific Reports (14), 7021, 2024. [pdf] [doi] - A Sequential Deep Learning Algorithm for Sampled Mixed-integer Optimisation Problems
Chamanbaz M & Bouffanais R
Information Sciences (634), 73–84, 2023. [pdf] [doi] - Effect of Swarm Density on Collective Tracking Performance
Kwa HL, Philippot J & Bouffanais R
Swarm Intelligence (17), 253–281, 2023. [pdf] [doi] - Adaptivity: A Path Towards General Swarm Intelligence?
Kwa HL, Kit JL, Horsevad N, Philippot J, Savari M & Bouffanais R
Frontiers in Robotics and AI (10), 1163185, 2023. [pdf] [doi] - Transition from Simple to Complex Contagion in Collective Decision-Making
Horsevad N, Mateo D, Kooij RE, Barrat A & Bouffanais R
Nature Communications (13), 1442, 2022. [pdf] [doi] - Cities – Try to Predict Superspreading Hotspots for COVID-19
Bouffanais R & Lim SS
Nature (583), 352–355, 2020. [pdf] [doi] - Optimal Network Topology for Responsive Collective Behavior
Mateo D, Horsevad N, Hassani V, Chamanbaz M & Bouffanais R
Science Advances (5), eaau0999, 2019. [pdf] [doi]
About Us
The Applied Complexity Group (ACG), directed by Prof. Roland Bouffanais (Faculty of Science & Global Studies Institute, University of Geneva), conducts interdisciplinary research at the intersection of Complexity Science, Computational Diplomacy, Multi-Agent Systems, Network Science, Computational Social Science and Artificial Intelligence.
Prof. Bouffanais holds the Chair in Computational Diplomacy, directs the Computer Science Department and co-directs the Science in Diplomacy Lab (SiDLab), a joint initiative of the University of Geneva and ETH Zürich.
Our research involves a synergistic combination of computational and theoretical developments, with real-life experimental validations.
We foster cross-disciplinary exploration to gain insights into a range of complex systems, from social networks, social contagions and collective decision-making to swarm intelligence, multi-agent systems and multilateral negotiations. We maintain a constructive and open dialogue between science, society, policy and industry.
Our team members hail from various fields and have expertise in a vast range of disciplines – including computational science, social sciences, international relations, machine learning, network science, robotics and control theory.
Our research is supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Fondation de l’Université de Genève, the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, as well as by collaborations with international organisations, government agencies and industry.
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