Nobel Prize recipient Illya Prigogine wrote some years ago a book entitled “The End of Certainty”. Specialized in non-linear systems, the great chemist emphasized in this text the importance of the scientific revolution initiated a century ago by the French mathematician Henri Poincaré: scientific certainty inherited from Laplace is a mirage; non-linearity, complexity and chaos are the new frontiers of science.
The advance of computer science and the remarkable growth of computing power over the last thirty years have made the computer a fantastic tool to cope with complexity. The emergence of nature inspired computing is one of the most amazing achievements of these researches. The universality of the computing techniques inherited from nature, i.e. their applications as well in biology, physics, engineering as in economics or management, clearly demonstrates their depth. These new tools are used in two different ways, both highly promising for economics and management: emergent (bottom-up) simulations and optimization. Emergent simulations lead to a better understanding of complex interactions and to original theoretical approaches. Nature inspired algorithms for optimization lead to efficient, supple and adaptable tools.

The 58 chapters of the Handbook of Research on Nature Inspired Computing for Economics and Management gather more than 100 authors from the most famous universities in the world, including leaders in the field. It provides with a unique coverage of researches using nature inspired computing for economics and management. Social scientists, economists and people dealing with management science will find both an introduction and a valuable presentation of state of the art researches in these fields, giving them a unique reference tool for their research. Students in computer sciences, social sciences and management will find all the necessary material to master the field and to help them in their training. Managers, engineers and practitioners will find a great deal of efficient and powerful tools to help them solve daily difficult problems and to anticipate the use of tools which will undoubtedly be part of to morrow key success factors.