Why funding ‘Complexity Science’ matters now more than ever

Science thrives on curiosity, persistence, and the willingness to ask difficult questions. But science also requires something more practical: funding. At the Raman Lab, our mission is to understand complexity and emergence—how patterns, constraints, and emergent behaviors give rise to systems that share our world, from proteins and cells to ecosystems and intelligence itself. Complexity science sits at the frontier of discovery, but like many areas of fundamental research, it faces an increasingly difficult funding environment.

The need to fund science—especially complexity science

Complexity science is not about studying one part of nature in isolation. Rather, it’s about understand how the whole organizes itself. This approach for tackling the most pressing challenges of our time—predicting how tumors evolve, engineering resilient microbiomes, building trustworthy artificial intelligence—are not problems that can be solved with incremental improvements. They demand new frameworks, new mathematics, and new types of experiments. Already, our lab has shown the very practical prowess of a deep investment into complexity science. To us, further investment means having a stake in shaping the foundation of tomorrow.

The current funding environment

Despite the urgency, the current research funding landscape is strained. Grant success rates at major funding agencies hover at historic lows, forcing scientists to spend more time writing proposals than actually doing science, thinking of new realities, and making real progress (stuff that we like to do!). Funding nowadays often flows towards safer, incremental projects rather than bold, paradigm-shifting ideas. While this ensures some progress, it risks starving the very research that could redefine how we understand and shape the world. The gap between what science could achieve and what is currently supported is widening. And complexity science, by its very nature, often falls on the wrong side of this divide.

How you can support us

At the Raman Lab, we are committed to advancing a generative theory of emergence and using it to design the systems of the future—whether biological, technological, or ecological. To do this, we need support beyond traditional funding channels. Philanthropic contributions, partnerships, and direct sponsorships give us the freedom to pursue bold ideas that may not fit neatly into existing categories, but have the potential to change the way science is done.

If you believe in funding science not just for incremental progress but for transformative discovery, we invite you to support our work. We thank our current and past funders who include the National Institute of Health (NIH), the National Institutes for Theory and Mathematics in Biology (NITMB), the Falk Medical Research Trust, the Lynn Sage Breast Cancer Foundation, and the Gates Foundation. To learn more or to explore ways of contributing, please contact me.