On the Institute’s 30th anniversary, even as we imagine tomorrow’s intellectual frontiers, we take a moment to recount the three decades that saw SFI’s birth and its development as the world center for complex systems research.

RESEARCH on the origins, development, and dynamics of complexity in biological systems has been a core topic of inquiry at the Santa Fe Institute since its founding 30 years ago in 1984. SFI’s scientists have worked to develop an understanding of a dizzying array of biological phenomena, from the origins of life, to transitions from single- to multi-cellularity, to evolutionary innovation at different levels of biological organization, to the relationship between ecological complexity and dynamical stability.