# Matjaž Perc

Matjaž Perc is Professor of Physics at the University of Maribor in Slovenia, and director of the Complex Systems Center Maribor. He is member of Academia Europaea and among top 1% most cited physicists according to Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researchers. He is Outstanding Referee of the Physical Review and Physical Review Letters journals, and Distinguished Referee of EPL. He received the Young Scientist Award for Socio-and Econophysics in 2015. His research has been widely reported in the media and professional literature.

## Biography

Matjaž Perc studied physics at the University of Maribor. He completed his doctoral thesis on noise-induced pattern formation in spatially extended systems with applications to the nervous system, game-theoretical models, and social complexity. In 2009 he received the Zois Certificate of Recognition for outstanding research achievements in theoretical physics. In 2010 he became head of the Institute of Physics at the University of Maribor, and in 2011 he became full Professor of Physics. In 2015, Matjaž Perc established the Complex Systems Center Maribor. His research on complex systems covers evolutionary game theory, agent-based modeling, data analysis, and network science.

## Research

Matjaž Perc is an expert on the theory of cooperation on networks. He has applied Monte Carlo simulations and dynamical mean field theory to discover that stochastic perturbations resolve social dilemmas in a resonance-like manner. He has also pioneered self-organization as a way of stabilizing reward and punishment in structured populations, and he has proposed the introduction of discrete strategies in ultimatum games, which has contributed to the understanding of the fascinating complexity behind human bargaining. His research has helped to reveal the full potential of methods of non-equilibrium statistical physics in evolutionary game theory.
He has done research on the evolution of moral and double moral standards, the evolution of the most common English words and phrases, and the rise and fall of new words. He has discovered self-organization in the way how major scientific ideas propagate across the physics literature, which culminated in a simple mathematical regularity that is able to identify scientific memes.
In addition to his various original contributions, Matjaž Perc has provided the research community with several reviews and introductory articles on evolutionary games, the emergence of organized crime, collective phenomena in socio-economic systems, energy-saving mechanisms in nature, and the Matthew effect. By the number of citations, he is the most cited author of several physics journals including New Journal of Physics, Biosystems, Journal of the Royal Society Interface, Physical Review E.

## Awards

* 2018 received the Zois Award (named after Sigmund Zois).
* 2017 received USERN Prize in social sciences, for "Transitions Towards Cooperation in Human Societies".
* 2009 received the Zois Certificate of Recognition. Being only 30 years old at the time, he was the youngest receiver of the Zois certificate ever.

## Publications

For a full list see Matjaž Perc's ORCID page.
* Spatial coherence resonance in excitable media, Matjaž Perc, Phys. Rev. E 72, 016207 (2005)
* Coherence resonance in a spatial prisoner's dilemma game, Matjaž Perc, New J. Phys. 8, 22 (2006)
* Transition from Gaussian to Lévy distributions of stochastic payoff variations in the spatial prisoner's dilemma game, Matjaž Perc, Phys. Rev. E 75, 022101 (2007)
* Noise-guided evolution within cyclical interactions, Matjaž Perc and Attila Szolnoki, New J. Phys. 9, 267 (2007)
* Social diversity and promotion of cooperation in the spatial prisoner's dilemma game, Matjaž Perc and Attila Szolnoki, Phys. Rev. E 77, 011904 (2008)
* Making new connections towards cooperation in the prisoner's dilemma game, Attila Szolnoki, Matjaž Perc and Zsuzsa Danku, EPL 84, 50007 (2008)
* Topology-independent impact of noise on cooperation in spatial public goods games, Attila Szolnoki, Matjaž Perc and György Szabó, Phys. Rev. E 80, 056109 (2009)
* Resolving social dilemmas on evolving random networks, Attila Szolnoki and Matjaž Perc, EPL 86, 30007 (2009)
* Coevolutionary games - A mini review, Matjaž Perc and Attila Szolnoki, BioSystems 99, 109-125 (2010)
* Does strong heterogeneity promote cooperation by group interactions?, Matjaž Perc, New J. Phys. 13, 123027 (2011)
* Defense mechanisms of empathetic players in the spatial ultimatum game, Attila Szolnoki, Matjaž Perc and György Szabó, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 078701 (2012)
* Evolution of the most common English words and phrases over the centuries, Matjaž Perc, J. R. Soc. Interface 9, 3323-3328 (2012) (tables containing the most common English words and phrases are here)
* Self-organization of punishment in structured populations, Matjaž Perc and Attila Szolnoki, New J. Phys. 14, 043013 (2012)
* Evolutionary advantages of adaptive rewarding, Attila Szolnoki and Matjaž Perc, New J. Phys. 14, 093016 (2012)
* Correlation of positive and negative reciprocity fails to confer an evolutionary advantage: Phase transitions to elementary strategies, Attila Szolnoki and Matjaž Perc, Phys. Rev. X 3, 041021 (2013)
* Evolutionary dynamics of group interactions on structured populations: A review, Matjaž Perc, Jesús Gómez Gardeñes, Attila Szolnoki, Luis M. Floría and Yamir Moreno, J. R. Soc. Interface 10, 20120997 (2013)
* Inheritance patterns in citation networks reveal scientific memes, Tobias Kuhn, Matjaž Perc and Dirk Helbing, Phys. Rev. X 4, 041036 (2014) (see also the Physics Focus story here)
* Interdependent network reciprocity in evolutionary games, Zhen Wang, Attila Szolnoki and Matjaž Perc, Scientific Reports 3, 1183 (2013)
* Self-organization of progress across the century of physics, Matjaž Perc, Scientific Reports 3, 1720 (2013) (the n-gram viewer for publications of the American Physical Society is here)
* Antisocial pool rewarding does not deter public cooperation, Attila Szolnoki and Matjaž Perc, Proc. R. Soc. B 282, 20151975 (2015)
* The Matthew effect in empirical data, Matjaž Perc, J. R. Soc. Interface 11, 20140378 (2014)
* Saving human lives: What complexity science and information systems can contribute, Dirk Helbing, Dirk Brockmann, Thomas Chadefaux, Karsten Donnay, Ulf Blanke, Olivia Woolley-Meza, Mehdi Moussaid, Anders Johansson, Jens Krause, Sebastian Schutte and Matjaž Perc, J. Stat. Phys. 158, 735-781 (2015)
* Statistical physics of crime: A review, Maria R. D'Orsogna and Matjaž Perc, Phys. Life Rev. 12, 1-21 (2015)

## Editorial work

Matjaž Perc is editorial board member at Physical Review E, New Journal of Physics, EPL, European Physical Journal B, Advances in Complex Systems, Frontiers in Interdisciplinary Physics, International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos, PLOS ONE, Scientific Reports, Royal Society Open Science, Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, and Applied Mathematics and Computation. He was also guest editor for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

## References and notes

* ↑ Matjaž Perc at Academia Europaea
* ↑ Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researchers
* ↑ APS Outstanding Referees Program
* ↑ Distinguished EPL Referees
* ↑ Awardees of the Young Scientist Award for Socio-and Econophysics
* ↑ Who should pay for the police? Nature 2010-07-14
* ↑ Tracking the most popular words in written English New Scientist 2012-07-25
* ↑ The Evolution of English Words and Phrases Since 1520 MIT Technology Review 2012-12-11
* ↑ Physicists Explore The Rise And Fall Of Words Inside Science 2012-12-27
* ↑ When physicists do linguistics The Boston Globe 2013-02-10
* ↑ Fewer 'bromances' or 'staycations' than friends and trips, Google shows Fox News 2012-12-28
* ↑ A brave new word Chemistry World 2015-02-24
* ↑ The cost and benefit of deception Physics Today 2014-12-04
* ↑ The influence of influence in Prisoner’s Dilemma Science News 2008-12-05
* ↑ Measuring the Spread of Ideas through the Physical Review Physics 2014-11-21
* ↑ Tolerate thy neighbour Nature Physics 2016-09-02
* ↑ Awardees of the Zois Certificate of Recognition
* ↑ Podelili Zoisove nagrade in priznanja Delo 2009-11-23
* ↑ Complex Systems Center Maribor
* ↑ Perc, Matjaž (2006). "Double resonance in cooperation induced by noise and network variation for an evolutionary prisoner's dilemma". New Journal of Physics. 8 (9): 183. Bibcode:2006NJPh....8..183P. doi:10.1088/1367-2630/8/9/183. hdl:20.500.12556/DKUM-35958.
* ↑ Szolnoki, A.; Perc, M.; Danku, Z. (2008). "Making new connections towards cooperation in the prisoner's dilemma game". EPL (Europhysics Letters). 84 (5): 50007. arXiv:0811.4372. Bibcode:2008EL.....8450007S. doi:10.1209/0295-5075/84/50007. S2CID 14717196.
* ↑ Perc, Matjaž; Szolnoki, Attila; Szabó, György (2008). "Restricted connections among distinguished players support cooperation". Physical Review E. 78 (6): 066101. arXiv:0811.3090. Bibcode:2008PhRvE..78f6101P. doi:10.1103/PhysRevE.78.066101. PMID 19256899. S2CID 17212325.
* ↑ Perc, Matjaž (2009). "Evolution of cooperation on scale-free networks subject to error and attack". New Journal of Physics. 11 (3): 033027. arXiv:0902.4661. Bibcode:2009NJPh...11c3027P. doi:10.1088/1367-2630/11/3/033027. S2CID 13642594.
* ↑ Szolnoki, Attila; Perc, Matjaž (2009). "Resolving social dilemmas on evolving random networks". EPL (Europhysics Letters). 86 (3): 30007. arXiv:0910.1905. Bibcode:2009EL.....8630007S. doi:10.1209/0295-5075/86/30007. S2CID 14670028.
* ↑ Wang, Zhen; Szolnoki, Attila; Perc, Matjaž (2012). "Evolution of public cooperation on interdependent networks: The impact of biased utility functions". EPL (Europhysics Letters). 97 (4): 48001. arXiv:1201.1900. Bibcode:2012EL.....9748001W. doi:10.1209/0295-5075/97/48001. S2CID 4520167.
* ↑ Wang, Zhen; Szolnoki, Attila; Perc, Matjaž (2013). "Interdependent network reciprocity in evolutionary games". Scientific Reports. 3: 1183. arXiv:1308.1947. Bibcode:2013NatSR...3E1183W. doi:10.1038/srep01183. PMC 3560361. PMID 23378915.
* ↑ Szolnoki, Attila; Xie, Neng-Gang; Ye, Ye; Perc, Matjaž (2013). "Evolution of emotions on networks leads to the evolution of cooperation in social dilemmas". Physical Review E. 87 (4): 042805. arXiv:1303.7225. Bibcode:2013PhRvE..87d2805S. doi:10.1103/PhysRevE.87.042805. PMID 23679471. S2CID 1028262.
* ↑ Wang, Zhen; Szolnoki, Attila; Perc, Matjaž (2014). "Self-organization towards optimally interdependent networks by means of coevolution". New Journal of Physics. 16 (3): 033041. arXiv:1404.2923. Bibcode:2014NJPh...16c3041W. doi:10.1088/1367-2630/16/3/033041. S2CID 4521294.
* ↑ Wang, Zhen; Wang, Lin; Perc, Matjaž (2014). "Degree mixing in multilayer networks impedes the evolution of cooperation". Physical Review E. 89 (5): 052813. arXiv:1406.1784. Bibcode:2014PhRvE..89e2813W. doi:10.1103/PhysRevE.89.052813. PMID 25353850. S2CID 1993680.
* ↑ Szolnoki, Attila; Perc, Matjaž (2015). "Defection and extortion as unexpected catalysts of unconditional cooperation in structured populations". Scientific Reports. 4: 5496. doi:10.1038/srep05496. PMC 4074784. PMID 24975112.
* ↑ Perc, Matjaž (2006). "Coherence resonance in a spatial prisoner's dilemma game". New Journal of Physics. 8 (2): 22. Bibcode:2006NJPh....8...22P. doi:10.1088/1367-2630/8/2/022.
* ↑ Perc, Matjaž; Marhl, Marko (2006). "Evolutionary and dynamical coherence resonances in the pair approximated prisoner's dilemma game". New Journal of Physics. 8 (8): 142. Bibcode:2006NJPh....8..142P. doi:10.1088/1367-2630/8/8/142. hdl:20.500.12556/DKUM-35956.
* ↑ Perc, Matjaž; Szolnoki, Attila (2012). "Self-organization of punishment in structured populations". New Journal of Physics. 14 (4): 043013. arXiv:1203.6900. Bibcode:2012NJPh...14d3013P. doi:10.1088/1367-2630/14/4/043013. S2CID 9651762.
* ↑ Szolnoki, Attila; Perc, Matjaž (2012). "Evolutionary advantages of adaptive rewarding". New Journal of Physics. 14 (9): 093016. arXiv:1208.3457. Bibcode:2012NJPh...14i3016S. doi:10.1088/1367-2630/14/9/093016. S2CID 2472543.
* ↑ Szolnoki, Attila; Perc, Matjaž; Szabó, György (2012). "Defense mechanisms of empathetic players in the spatial ultimatum game". Physical Review Letters. 109 (7): 078701. arXiv:1207.4786. Bibcode:2012PhRvL.109g8701S. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.078701. PMID 23006406. S2CID 130132.
* ↑ Szolnoki, Attila; Perc, Matjaž; Szabó, György (2012). "Accuracy in strategy imitations promotes the evolution of fairness in the spatial ultimatum game". EPL (Europhysics Letters). 100 (2): 28005. arXiv:1211.1964. Bibcode:2012EL....10028005S. doi:10.1209/0295-5075/100/28005. S2CID 11113946.
* ↑ Perc, Matjaž (2016). "Phase transitions in models of human cooperation". Physics Letters A. 380 (36): 2803–2808. Bibcode:2016PhLA..380.2803P. doi:10.1016/j.physleta.2016.06.017.
* ↑ Helbing, Dirk; Szolnoki, Attila; Perc, Matjaž; Szabó, György (2010). "Evolutionary Establishment of Moral and Double Moral Standards through Spatial Interactions". PLOS Computational Biology. 6 (4): e1000758. arXiv:1003.3165. Bibcode:2010PLSCB...6E0758H. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000758. PMC 2861625. PMID 20454464.
* ↑ Perc, M. (2012). "Evolution of the most common English words and phrases over the centuries". Journal of the Royal Society Interface. 9 (77): 3323–3328. arXiv:1212.1709. Bibcode:2012arXiv1212.1709P. doi:10.1098/rsif.2012.0491. PMC 3481586. PMID 22832364.
* ↑ Petersen, Alexander M.; Tenenbaum, Joel N.; Havlin, Shlomo; Stanley, H. Eugene; Perc, Matjaž (2012). "Languages cool as they expand: Allometric scaling and the decreasing need for new words". Scientific Reports. 2: 943. arXiv:1212.2616. Bibcode:2012NatSR...2E.943P. doi:10.1038/srep00943. PMC 3517984. PMID 23230508.
* ↑ Perc, Matjaž (2013). "Self-organization of progress across the century of physics". Scientific Reports. 3: 1720. arXiv:1305.0552. Bibcode:2013NatSR...3E1720P. doi:10.1038/srep01720. PMC 3634109. S2CID 2364911.
* ↑ Kuhn, Tobias; Perc, Matjaž; Helbing, Dirk (2014). "Inheritance Patterns in Citation Networks Reveal Scientific Memes". Physical Review X. 4 (4): 041036. arXiv:1404.3757. Bibcode:2014PhRvX...4d1036K. doi:10.1103/PhysRevX.4.041036. S2CID 14810454.
* ↑ Perc, Matjaž; Szolnoki, Attila (2010). "Coevolutionary games - A mini review". Biosystems. 99 (2): 109–125. arXiv:0910.0826. doi:10.1016/j.biosystems.2009.10.003. PMID 19837129. S2CID 8313629.
* ↑ Perc, M.; Gomez-Gardenes, J.; Szolnoki, A.; Floria, L. M.; Moreno, Y. (2013). "Evolutionary dynamics of group interactions on structured populations: A review". Journal of the Royal Society Interface. 10 (80): 20120997. arXiv:1301.2247. Bibcode:2013arXiv1301.2247P. doi:10.1098/rsif.2012.0997. PMC 3565747. PMID 23303223.
* ↑ Szolnoki, A.; Mobilia, M.; Jiang, L.-L.; Szczesny, B.; Rucklidge, A. M.; Perc, M. (2014). "Cyclic dominance in evolutionary games: A review". Journal of the Royal Society Interface. 11 (100): 20140735. arXiv:1408.6828. Bibcode:2014arXiv1408.6828S. doi:10.1098/rsif.2014.0735. PMC 4191105. PMID 25232048.
* ↑ Wang, Zhen; Wang, Lin; Szolnoki, Attila; Perc, Matjaž (2015). "Evolutionary games on multilayer networks: A colloquium". The European Physical Journal B. 88 (5): 124. arXiv:1504.04359. Bibcode:2015EPJB...88..124W. doi:10.1140/epjb/e2015-60270-7. S2CID 4525398.
* ↑ d'Orsogna, Maria R.; Perc, Matjaž (2015). "Statistical physics of crime: A review". Physics of Life Reviews. 12: 1–21. arXiv:1411.1743. Bibcode:2015PhLRv..12....1D. doi:10.1016/j.plrev.2014.11.001. hdl:2158/1087565. PMID 25468514. S2CID 12122055.
* ↑ Helbing, Dirk; Brockmann, Dirk; Chadefaux, Thomas; Donnay, Karsten; Blanke, Ulf; Woolley-Meza, Olivia; Moussaid, Mehdi; Johansson, Anders; Krause, Jens; Schutte, Sebastian; Perc, Matjaž (2015). "Saving human lives: What complexity science and information systems can contribute". Journal of Statistical Physics. 158 (3): 735–781. arXiv:1402.7011. Bibcode:2015JSP...158..735H. doi:10.1007/s10955-014-1024-9. PMC 4457089. PMID 26074625.
* ↑ Perc, Matjaž; Grigolini, Paolo (2013). "Collective behavior and evolutionary games - An introduction". Chaos, Solitons & Fractals. 56: 1–5. arXiv:1306.2296. Bibcode:2013CSF....56....1P. doi:10.1016/j.chaos.2013.06.002. S2CID 7571668.
* ↑ Trenchard, Hugh; Perc, Matjaž (2016). "Energy saving mechanisms, collective behavior and the variation range hypothesis in biological systems: A review". Biosystems. 147: 40–66. arXiv:1606.08969. Bibcode:2016arXiv160608969T. doi:10.1016/j.biosystems.2016.05.010. PMID 27288936. S2CID 7160348.
* ↑ Perc, M. (2014). "The Matthew effect in empirical data". Journal of the Royal Society Interface. 11 (98): 20140378. arXiv:1408.5124. Bibcode:2014arXiv1408.5124P. doi:10.1098/rsif.2014.0378. PMC 4233686. PMID 24990288.
* ↑ "M. Perc citation rankings". Exaly. Retrieved 2022-06-07.
* ↑ Del Vicario, Michela; Bessi, Alessandro; Zollo, Fabiana; Petroni, Fabio; Scala, Antonio; Caldarelli, Guido; Stanley, H. Eugene; Quattrociocchi, Walter (2016). "The spreading of misinformation online". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 113 (3): 554–559. Bibcode:2016PNAS..113..554D. doi:10.1073/pnas.1517441113. PMC 4725489. PMID 26729863.