INSTITUTO SISTEMAS COMPLEJOS DE INGENIERIA

Their core work

ISCI is a Chilean research center that applies complex systems engineering and operations research to environmental management problems — primarily forest ecosystems, wildfire response, and land-use planning under climate change. Their core work involves building quantitative decision-support tools that help land managers, public agencies, and policymakers choose among competing strategies when facing uncertainty, risk, and large-scale ecological dynamics. In the H2020 context, they contribute analytical modeling and simulation capabilities to European-led projects addressing fire resilience and ecosystem service supply. As a non-EU partner, they bring a Latin American perspective on fire ecology and adaptive management that adds comparative value to European research consortia.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Both H2020 projects began in 2021, so the keyword split reflects differences between the two projects rather than a true multi-year trajectory. DecisionES sits closer to analytical planning — decision support frameworks, forest modeling, adaptive management theory. FIRE-RES pushes toward operational and governance dimensions: real-time simulation, fire education and training, proactive governance, and post-fire territorial reconstruction. The overall direction, even within a single funding cycle, is from pure decision science toward applied socio-ecological systems management with a governance and implementation focus.

ISCI is moving from analytical modeling toward integrated socio-ecological management tools that combine real-time simulation, governance frameworks, and land-use economics — making them a stronger fit for applied, multi-stakeholder projects than for purely theoretical research consortia.

How they like to work

ISCI has never led an H2020 project — they participate as partner or third party, suggesting they are brought in as specialist contributors rather than consortium builders. Their participation in FIRE-RES, a large Innovation Action with 52 consortium partners across 18 countries, shows they can operate effectively in complex, multi-national teams. As a Chilean institution in European projects, they likely occupy a defined analytical or modeling niche rather than a coordination role.

ISCI has reached 52 unique consortium partners across 18 countries through just two projects, which reflects the scale of FIRE-RES as a large IA. Their network is predominantly European but their home base in Chile gives them a distinctive non-EU footprint that can satisfy geographic diversity requirements in Horizon consortia.

What sets them apart

ISCI is one of very few Latin American research centers active in H2020 forest and fire management projects, which makes them a rare bridge between European fire science and Southern Hemisphere wildfire experience — relevant given the increasing frequency of extreme fire events globally. Their institutional name signals a systems engineering and operations research foundation, which differentiates them from ecology or forestry departments: they bring quantitative optimization and decision-science tools that many environmental partners lack. For consortia needing non-EU participation or comparative fire-ecology expertise from a region with decades of large wildfire experience, ISCI fills a gap that European partners cannot.

Highlights from their portfolio

• FIRE-RES
  The largest and most operationally ambitious of ISCI's H2020 projects — a full Innovation Action (2021–2025) tackling fire-resilient territories across Europe, covering everything from real-time fire simulation to post-fire bioeconomy, with EUR 435,750 in EC funding to ISCI.
• DecisionES
  A five-year MSCA-RISE project (2021–2026) that positions ISCI at the intersection of ecosystem service theory and applied forest planning, with a strong climate change adaptation dimension that extends beyond fire to broader global change scenarios.