About us

We are an interdisciplinary team of biologists and theoreticians working on collective behaviour in Biological and Artificial Systems. Previously members and founders of the Unit of Social Ecology at ULB, we founded BASS, a unit of the department of Chimie Physique and Biologie Théorique under the direction of Anne De Wit. In addition, BASS is part of the Center for Nonlinear Phenomena and Complex Systems at ULB.

The unit, led by Jean-Louis Deneubourg, is composed by several Post-docs and PhDs from different scientific horizons and expertise. We focus ourself on the experimental and theoretical study of social and gregarious species as well as on artificial systems and mixed societies.

We identify the generic individual rules at the basis of self-organised phenomena in Biology. Our research interests include

  • self-organisation and emergent behaviour, non-linear dynamical systems in biology, dissipative structures, biological complex systems, collective intelligence in artificial systems.
  • collective behaviour, aggregation behaviours.
  • individual decision-making and collective intelligence in insect societies.
  • self-organisation in biological systems.
  • bioinspiration: towards mixed societies of natural and artificial agents

We believe that fundamental research should be inseparable of everyday practical applications. We therefore constantly seek for new ways to deploy our knowledge to develop new modalities to help the civil society with such issues as animal and/or pest control.