Why do we stop growing, live for 100 years and sleep 8 hours a day? Why do all companies and people die whereas cities keep growing and the pace of life continues to accelerate? And how are these related to innovation, wealth creation, social networks, urbanization and the long-term sustainability of the planet? These are among the questions that will be addressed in this lecture. Although life is probably the most complex and diverse phenomenon in the Universe, many of its fundamental characteristics scale with size in a surprisingly simple fashion: metabolic rate, for example, scales in a systematically predictable way from cells to whales, while time-scales from lifespans to growth-rates, and sizes from genome lengths to tree heights, likewise scale systematically. 

Remarkably, cities, companies and universities also exhibit systematic scaling: wages, profits, patents, crime, disease, and roads all scale in an approximately “universal” fashion. The origin of these laws, which constrain much of the organization and dynamics of life, will be explained and a conceptual framework based on the generic principles of the underlying networks that sustain life ranging from circulatory systems to social networks will be presented. Their dynamics, which transcend history, geography and culture, have dramatic implications for growth, development and long-term sustainability; left unchecked, innovation and wealth creation that fuel socio-economic systems potentially sow the seeds for collapse.

Dr Geoffrey West is the Shannan Distinguished Professor and former President of the Santa Fe Institute and an Associate Senior Fellow of Oxford University’s Green-Templeton College. Prior to joining the Santa Fe Institute as a Distinguished Professor in 2003, he was the leader, and founder, of the high energy physics group at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He is a theoretical physicist whose primary interests have been in fundamental questions ranging across physics, biology and the social sciences. His work is motivated by the search for unifying principles and the “simplicity underlying complexity”. His research includes metabolism, growth, aging & death, sleep, cancer, ecosystems, innovation and the accelerating pace of life. Most recently he has been developing a science of cities and companies, including the challenge of long-term global sustainability of the anthroposphere. West has lectured at many high profile events worldwide including TED and Davos. He has received many awards and his work featured in numerous publications, podcasts and TV productions. His work on cities and companies was selected as a breakthrough idea of 2007 by Harvard Business Review. He is the author of the best-selling book Scale; The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies and was named to Time magazine's list of "100 Most Influential People in the World" in 2006.

His partner in conversation at the event will be Gergely Böszörményi-Nagy, the founder of  Brain Bar festival, head of the Design Terminal innovation agency and the foundation president of the Moholy-Nagy University of Arts and Design (MOME). He studied at Corvinus University of Budapest, CEU, Stanford Business School and the London School of Economics. In 2020, he was awarded the Hungarian Gold Cross of Merit for the development of Hungary's innovation ecosystem. 

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