This page, bringing together activities related to modeling in emerging challenges, is an initiative of the Centre des recherches mathématiques (CRM). The idea behind this group comes from the recent realization that our societies are not well equipped to react quickly to emerging challenges and specially to transfer newly generated knowledge into tools and decision-making systems in times of crisis. For example, the current coronavirus crisis has highlighted the many gaps in global preparedness for emerging diseases.

One of the lessons learned during the current health crisis was the lack of preparedness of private and public sector organizations (government, health institutions, education, economies, public decision makers, regulation, supply chains, etc.) to face these emerging challenges. For example, rigid and disconnected data systems have failed to rapidly generate, collect, aggregate and analyze the large amounts of data produced by global institutions. Efforts to model, predict, analyze and relay information to decision-making bodies have been weakened, leading to inadequate responses, sources of economic and social stress, and unnecessary loss of human life. This same level of unpreparedness exists especially when it comes to a wider range of interconnected challenges such as the ongoing environmental crisis, sustainable finance or medicine.

It is in this context that researchers from CRM and across Canada, have come together in a data-driven modeling group to improve the response to national and international crises in the face of emerging challenges in the fields of epidemiology, environmental science, sustainable development, responsible economics and finance.