Of all cities on Earth, New York City may be the biggest melting pot of cultures, a confluence of countless nations centered on a rather small island, Manhattan. In a somewhat similar way, ELSI may become a melting pot of academic disciplines, loosely held together by questions of origins, but combining just about any field in natural science, mathematics and engineering, as well as in social science and in the humanities.

The core mission of ELSI is research into the origins and early evolution of life, in the context of the origin and early evolution of the Earth, together with a similar study of the possibility of life on other planets, near and far. How does that relate to a claim of connections with all conceivable disciplines, you may ask.

For starters, it is easy to see how all natural sciences have something to contribute. I expect that most of ELSI's research activities will focus on the transition from chemistry to biology, in the context of　geology, that gave rise to the first forms of life on Earth. To be more precise, from geochemistry to organic chemistry to biochemistry, within the context of geology and paleobiology. But in addition, many aspects of applied physics and mathematical modeling, as well as insights of modern biology, will come into play. And besides studies of our own planet, astrophysics will guide us in searching for signs of life on planets and moons and asteroids in our own solar system and beyond. Technology will assist us observing distant places as well as in visiting more nearby targets of opportunity.

But what about social science and humanities? It is here that the more general question of complex systems studies comes in. Life is by far the most interesting and most complex of all systems we have studied in our world. From the fascinating richness of the structure of a single cell to the intricacies of the ecology of the whole biosphere and the mysteries of the way a human brain functions, we are only just beginning to explore the structure and dynamics of truly complex systems.

We are very fortunate to be alive at this time. Just in the last decade we have discovered so much about complexity: from the amazing way a cell operates and continually repairs itself, to the way that very diverse networks of networks operate in nature and culture, on all scales, from social networks among ants and humans to the rise of the internet. An overarching understanding of complexity is slowly taking shape, across many disciplines. If I were a student today, there is no doubt in my mind that I would take some form of complexity studies as my major, through whatever inroad from whatever starting discipline, which could be any discipline, really.

The transition from a dance of molecules in chemistry to the first forms of life, whether in primitive forms of cell membranes, or in pores or on the surface of minerals, was the first example of the origin of true complexity on Earth. Much more recent transitions were the origins of language in humans, as well as the origins of forms of economy, of the rise of cities and of other complex forms of collaboration and competition. It is fascinating that the invention of the written script, only a few thousand years ago, has paralleled the inventation of another digital form of representation, billions of years older, in the form of the DNA of the original cells from which we all descend.

In fact, the whole notion of evolution, the corner stone of modern biology, was arrived at by Darwin in analogy to economic systems of competition and struggle for survival. Clearly from the very beginning of modern biological thought, complex systems thinking has moved in both directions, from social science to natural science and back again to social science. One of ELSI's activities will be to ask such overarching questions as the origins of true complexity in general, in dialogues spanning all of academics.

However, asking only the biggest questions as such will not bring us very far. From time to time it is certainly stimulating to look up at these general questions, but we are unlikely to make progress unless we also look down, at the geology and oceanography of the Earth we inhabit, and at our laboratory experiments that show us in ever more intricate detail how truly complex life is in more and more unexpected ways.

In ELSI our main emphasis will be on investigating those more detailed questions, in astrophysics, geophysics, geochemistry, biochemistry, paleobiology and biology itself. In a truly broadly interdisciplinary and international way researchers at ELSI will patiently work on the tapestry of the origins of life in context, where all the threads from these different disciplines come together. And from time to time we will take a break, to look up from the threads to the overall picture, and to the way it is framed, in a way that covers all academic fields.