Nanyang Technological University

Jan Wouter Vasbinder started his professional career as a researcher in a nuclear laboratory, working in the nuclear industry in Israel and the Netherlands. In 1981, he was appointed Attaché for Science and Technology in Washington and Ottawa. In 1985, he returned to the Netherlands, to head an organization responsible for developing large and long-term cooperative industry university research programs. Subsequently he became member of the management team of the Dutch organization responsible for executing government innovation policies. In 1995 he co-founded Prisma & Partners, a firm dedicated to finding, strengthening, and mobilizing the innovative capacity of companies, consortia (e.g. of corporations and universities), government (related) organizations and regions. He invested much time in helping organizations to develop their strategies for the future. In 2003 he initiated Institute Para Limes (“beyond boundaries”) in Europe to stand for explorations across boundaries of science, art, and philosophy. His most recent move was in July 2011, when he moved to the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore to become the director of the

Complexity Program aimed at developing a Complexity Institute at NTU. The Complexity Institute was spun-off on 1 April 2014. The Complexity Program is now renamed Para Limes. The joy in his work comes from finding new, potentially powerful, combinations of knowledge, and from developing programs to explore and exploit these combinations. His motto is: “the value of knowledge is in its use”.

Plenary Address: Complexity Science and Classical Chinese Thought  (Vasbinder Plenary Abstract)