SFI | The Complexity Global School for Emerging Political Economies

What

The 2025 Complexity Global School for Emerging Political Economies is an intensive, 12-day program that provides deep exposure to the latest complex methods, models, and frameworks for thinking about economics and governance. CGS will also provide an opportunity to collaborate on an international group project developing an idea of your interest. The program will run from Monday, July 28th through Friday, August 8th, 2025. This program will consist of about 60 students from across the globe. Students residing or working in Latin America are strongly encouraged to apply.

Selected students will be early-career, deep thinkers who are either academics from a wide array of disciplines, or, practitioners from the private sector, government, or other civil society organizations. All admitted students will be thinkers who care about the application of creative, intellectual solutions to emergent global challenges. The CGS curriculum is largely based on SFI’s Complex Systems Summer School, which has been running for over 30 years and whose alumni have gone on to obtain top positions in academia, government, and industry. Although this program will be of great use to individuals pursuing a tenure track academic appointment, it is also highly relevant for practitioners seeking to increase their impact! Please note, this is a full-time, residential program. Attendees are expected to participate in all lectures and activities and submit a group project after the conclusion of the school.

Why

The world is changing. The political and economic paradigms that dominated global affairs in the 20th Century were largely based on linear thinking, and often originated from within disciplinary and cultural silos. The challenges now facing humanity require new ideas. A global perspective is needed; la Universidad de los Andes and Santa Fe Insitute (SFI) are among the top academic institutions in Latin America and North America respectively. A non-linear, or complex, perspective is also needed; for almost 40 years, the Santa Fe Institute has coordinated a network of complexity scholars from top universities around the world.

Who

The July 2025 Complexity Global School (CGS) is a collaboration between la Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia, and the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) in the USA. The 2025 Complexity Global program is supported by grants from the Omidyar Network and the Ford Foundation. This year’s school will take place on the campus of La Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia.

Curriculum

Following the pedagogical structure used in SFI’s Complex Systems Summer School over the last 30 years, this program will feature a series of lectures that introduce fundamental mechanisms and models of complex systems. There will also be a series of applied lectures, that show the applications of these models and methods to issues related to economic, political, and social life.

Some of the core methods that will be covered include:

• network analysis,
• computational social science (including agent-based models, but also things like NK landscapes, etc.),
• applied scaling theory,
• emergent engineering, and
• digital humanities

Some of the applied topics include:

• inequality
• climate change
• technological disruption in social systems
• federalism and democracy
• belief dynamics
• the future of work

Although the seminars and discussion sessions will dominate the 12-day schedule, the group project is most important aspect. Towards this end, there will be ample time for informal collaboration with peers and instructors. All courageous thinkers interested in understanding social life are welcome, but folks with strong quantitative skills are especially welcome.

Who should apply?

We are working to assemble a diverse student body, so there is no “ideal applicant.” If you are a graduate student interested in learning new tools for understanding social, economic, or political issues, please apply. If you are a practitioner working to create change in your world, either in the non-profit, government, or for-profit sector, please apply. If you are thinking of ways small interventions can have outsized impact in addressing an important problem, please apply!

The July 2025 Complexity Global School is open to applicants across the globe; however, students residing or working in North or South America are strongly encouraged to apply. The school is also geared towards early-career academics and change-makers, so applicants should be: (i) current graduate students; (ii) early-career researchers; or (iii) practitioners from civil society or private industry who want to use new theories and ideas to make change.

The Complexity Global program does not discriminate on the basis of age, class, ethnicity, gender, religion, or sexual orientation. All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply.

What does it cost to attend?

NOTHING! The Summer 2025 Complexity Global School is 100% free for all admitted students. (This is thanks to generous support from The Omidyar Network and The Ford Foundation.) In addition to free tuition, all students will receive free room and board during the two-week program as well as a modest stipend to offset incidental expenses during the school. Furthermore, students who need to travel from outside the immediate region of the school will receive generous travel stipends to cover the cost of their travel to and from the school.

When is the school?

The in-person portion of the school runs from Monday, July 28th to Monday August 8th, 2025. The in-person portion of the school is intense, and students will not have time for outside work during the school. The final group project is due by mid-November, 2025. We expect that students will virtually collaborate with their project group between the end of the in-person session (August 8th, 2025) and their group’s submission of the final project (mid-November).

Application and more details: https://santafe.edu/info/2025-complexity-global-school/overview