This Handbook has been in preparation since June 2013 when the first emails were exchanged with Edward Elgar, but the long journey has been worth it. What we have achieved is a truly comprehensive coverage of research methods in complexity science.

The Handbook is addressed to both academic researchers and practitioners and attempts to cover most research methods based on the sciences of complexity, and applying them to practical cases. Its six parts include 26 chapters, contributed by 52 authors and each part includes different types of research methods. They range from Research Philosophy (Part I) to Qualitative Techniques (Part II), Visual Methodologies (Part III), Modelling and Statistical Analysis of Empirical Data (Part IV), Multi-Level Networks (Part V) and Mixed Methods (Part VI). The research methods complement each other and most are presented in a way that other researchers and decision makers may be able to use.

本手册自2013年6月与爱德华·埃尔加（Edward Elgar）交换了第一封电子邮件后便开始编写，但这段漫长的旅程是值得的。我们所取得的成就是对复杂科学研究方法的全面覆盖。

该手册面向学术研究人员和实践者，试图涵盖基于复杂性科学的大多数研究方法，并将其应用于实际案例。全文共分六个部分，共26章，作者52人，每一部分包括不同类型的研究方法。它们的范围从研究哲学（第一部分）到定性技术（第二部分）、可视化方法（第三部分）、经验数据的建模和统计分析（第四部分）、多层次网络（第五部分）和混合方法（第六部分）。研究方法相互补充，大多数研究方法都是以其他研究人员和决策者可以使用的方式呈现的。