Work at the proposed research institute will be propelled by a new scientific field called the complexity theory.

This theory suggests that events and actions interact in complex ways to produce unpredictable effects. It has found applications in areas such as mathematics, computers, business, language and medicine.

It explains, for example, how poor lending decisions in the housing loan mortgage sector in the United States triggered a global economic meltdown.

Two think tanks which research into issues using the theory are already up and running: One is the 25-year-old pioneering Santa Fe Institute in the US, and the other, the three-year-old Institute Para Limes in Holland.

These two bodies, with Nanyang Technological University (NTU), are looking into opening the Asian version of the Santa Fe Institute here.

About 50 researchers from across the world have gathered at the NTU for a two-day conference on the scope of the theory, with speakers covering topics such as Nobel prize-winning discoveries, economics and infectious diseases.

The conference, called Adaption, Order and Emergence, is a birthday tribute to a key contributor to the theory, Dr John Holland, who turned 80 last week.

He is credited as the founder of a field called genetic algorithms, a powerful computing tool that can generate the possible permutations of anything ranging from ways to build the best jet engine to ways of formulating the chemicals in a drug.

On how the complexity theory can be applied here, he said: 'The more we know about complexity and how complex systems learn and adapt, the more we will know about innovation - and innovation is important for Singapore because you have no natural resources.'

Read the full report in Friday's edition of The Straits Times.