CoSMoS is a UK funded research project seeking do build capacity in generic modelling tools and simulation techniques for complex systems. Its acronym stands for Complex Systems Modelling and Simulation.
This is a four-year project, running from 2007 to 2011 as a collaboration between the University of York

University of York

The University of York , is an academic institution located in the city of York, England. Established in 1963, the campus university has expanded to more than thirty departments and centres, covering a wide range of subjects...

 and Kent

University of Kent

The University of Kent, previously the University of Kent at Canterbury, is a public research university based in Kent, United Kingdom...

, with further collaborations from the University of Abertay Dundee

University of Abertay Dundee

The University of Abertay Dundee, usually known simply as Abertay University, is a modern university in Dundee, Scotland.- History :The University of Abertay Dundee was created in 1994, under government legislation granting the title University to the Dundee Institute of Technology...

 and Bristol Robotics Laboratory.

History

Collaboration between the universities of York and Kent started with the TUNA project, a feasibility study looking at the requirements for developing networks of nanites that behave safely . This project involved researchers from York, Kent and Surrey. TUNA's outcomes were both conceptual and practical. An example of theoretical contribution consists of investigators showing that emergent properties

Emergence

In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. Emergence is central to the theories of integrative levels and of complex systems....

 do not refine

Refinement

In formal methods, program refinement is the verifiable transformation of an abstract formal specification into a concrete executable program. Stepwise refinement allows this process to be done in stages...

, but gave insights into the engineering of emergence .
Practical results were obtained through the use of a blood clotting case-study. This led to the development of a process-oriented

Process-oriented programming

Process-oriented programming is a programming paradigm that separates the concerns of data structures and the concurrent processes that act upon them. The data structures in this case are typically persistent, complex, and large scale - the subject of general purpose applications, as opposed to...

, large-scale simulation implemented in occam-pi.