This site is an archive for the Center for the Integrative Study of Work in Living Systems (CISW), founded in 2000.  Current programmatic information on the integrative study of work in living systems may be found at www.workscienceinstitute.org.

The Center for the Integrative Study of Work in Living Systems (CISW) has created a unique, dynamic, project-based, crosscutting research community, bringing together researchers in biological, chemical, and life sciences, mathematics, engineering, neuroscience and psychological science. The CISW research community is both CU-based and international, including participants in the UK at the University of Cambridge and the University of St Andrews, as well as in France, Finland, and Japan.

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The Integrative Study of Work in Living Systems
Our research community focuses on the development of a biologically integrative approach to studying work processes in living systems, from the level of molecular and cellular processes, to organismal and population levels, and from the perspectives of disciplines within and outside of the life sciences.

Goals
The development of the integrative study of work in living systems at CISW has three major goals, each of which bring life scientists, from a range of disciplines, together with researchers outside life sciences:

  1. To use basic biological research to increase the understanding that biological processes play in contemporary human work, in particular in the cognitively-based work done in post-industrial settings.
  2. To increase the understanding that research on work processes can bring to basic biological research: that is, by understanding biological processes as work processes.
  3. To develop innovative approaches to improving the practical work of integrative and interdisciplinary research, particularly research in the life sciences.