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EDU research can be divided into six major academic domains, and promising research themes within each domain. Each theme lists a few distinguished investigators (most not associated with the EDU community) in the theme, some of whom we hope to solicit for presentations or tutorials at future conferences.

==== '''Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Information Theory''' ====
* Entropy Production and Infodynamics (Roderick Dewar, Stanley Salthe) 
* Evolution and Development of Information (William Harms, Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic, Seth Lloyd, Cliff Joslyn) 
* Evolutionary Cosmology (Lee Smolin, George FR Ellis, Quentin Smith)
* Fine-Tuning Problem in Cosmology (Milan Cirkovic, John Leslie, John D. Barrow, Lawrence M. Krauss, Martin J. Rees) 
* Quantum Darwinism (Wojciech Zurek) 
* Self-Organizing Space-Time (Jan Ambjørn, Renate Loll) 
* Self-Similar and Scale Relative Cosmology (Robert Oldershaw, Marie-Noelle Celerier, Laurent Nottale) 

==== '''Chemistry, Energetics, and Astrobiology''' ====
* Chemical Evolution and the Origin of Life (Martin Nowak, Steen Rasmussen, D. Eric Smith) 
* Emergent Features of Chemistry (Robert Laughlin, Eric Scerri) 
* Free Energy Rate Density and Astrobiology (Eric Chaisson, Fred Spier) 
* Habitable Zones and Biofelicity (Helmut Lammer, Paul Davies, Chris Chyba) 
* RNA World Hypothesis (D. Eric Smith, Eörs Szathmáry)

==== '''Biology - Life Sciences''' ====
* Acceleration in Evolutionary Transitions (Laurent Nottale, Jean Chaline, Pierre Grou, Robert Aunger) 
* Acceleration in Human Genetic Evolution (John Hawks, Eric T. Wang, Bob Moyzis)
* Anthropoid Convergence (Dale Russell) 
* Developmental Ascendancy (James A. Coffman, Robert Ulanowicz) 
* Dynamical Patterning Modules and Genetic-Cellular Self Organization (Stuart A. Newman) 
* Evo Devo: Beyond Natural Selection (Robert Ulanowicz, Simon Conway-Morris, Gerd B. Müller) 
* Evo Devo and Epigenetics (Eva Jablonka) 
* Evolutionary Convergence (Simon Conway-Morris) 
* Evolutionary Escalation (Geerat Vermiej) 
* Hierarchy and Modularity (Werner Callebaut, Günter P. Wagner, Stan Salthe) 
* Hierarchy and Scale in Ecology (John Bonner, Geoffrey West) 
* Scale Relativity in Systems Biology (Charles Auffray, Geoffrey West, Laurent Nottale)

==== '''Biology - Mind and Social Sciences''' ====
* Neural Darwinism in Development and Adulthood (Gerald Edelman, Olaf Sporns, Nicolas Lori)
* Cognitive Selectionism (William Calvin, Donald T. Campbell, Daniel Dennett) 
* Integrated Information as Consciousness Development (Giulio Tononi, Christof Koch, Tomaso Poggio)
* Evolution of Language and Universal Grammars (Stanislas Dehaene, Andrew Ira Nevins, Terrence Deacon) 
* Evolutionary Psychology (Jerome Barkow, Leda Cosmides, Michael Ghiselin, John Tooby) 
* Evolutionary Morality (Richard Joyce, Robert Wright, Herbert Gintis, Samuel Bowles, Robert Boyd, Ernst Fehr) 
* Evo Devo and Cognitive Psychology (Daniel J. Povinelli, Ronald Amundson, Robert Sapolsky) 
* Memes and Cultural Evo Devo (Robert Aunger, Ron Inglehart, Howard Bloom)
* Evolutionary Social Systems (David Hull, Geoffrey Hodgson, Thorbjoern Knudsen, Joel Mokyr)

==== '''Economics, Technology and Computation''' ====
* Evolutionary Economics (Richard Nelson, Kurt Dopfer, Hardy Hanappi, Samuel Bowles)
* Institutions and Stigmergy (Eric Bonabeau, Mark Elliott, Benjamin Kerr, Francis Heylighen) 
* Niche Construction and Human-Machine Symbiosis (Andy Clark,F. John Odling-Smee, Kevin Laland, Norman Johnson) 
* Technical Productivity (Jack E. Triplett, Timothy F. Bresnahan, Christopher L. Magee)
* Computer Capacity and Information Growth (William D. Nordhaus, John F. Gantz, Hans Moravec)
* Evolutionary Learning Agents and Evolutionary Computation (Peter Norvig, Ingo Rechenberg, Nick Bostrom)
* Artificial Life (Chris Adami, John Holland, John Koza, Chris Langton) 
* Technological Autonomy (Kevin Kelly, Hans Moravec, Ray Kurzweil)

==== '''Transdisciplinarity (Complexity, Philosophy, Systems Theory)''' ====
* Constructal Theory (Adrian Bejan) 
* Evolution and Development of Complexity (Yaneer Bar-Yam, Francis Heylighen, Harold Morowitz, Stan Salthe) 
* Self-Organization and Self-Assembly in Complexity (Carlos Gershenson, Francis Heylighen)
* Evolutionary Values and Iterative Games (Herbert Gintis, Richard Joyce, Robert Wright) 
* CNS with Intelligence (James N. Gardner, Bela Balasz)
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== Future Conference Proposals ==

==== Complexity Transitions in Big History: Transition Definitions, Growth Curve Hypotheses, and Future Scenarios ====

'''Purposes:'''<BR>
'''1.''' Explore a Variety of Complexity Transition Definitions for Big History: Thermodynamic, Informational-Computational, Evolutionary, Developmental, Integrative, and Systemic<BR>
'''2.''' Associate these Definitions with a Variety of Tentative Growth Curve Hypotheses: Superexponential, Exponential, Logistic, and Other<BR>
'''3.''' Consider A Range of Transition and Growth Curve Scenarios Implied by these Hypotheses for the Future of Technological Innovation and Sustainability.<BR>
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We wish to seek out and network transition scholars, periodization, and acceleration, multi-level evolution and development scholars, world system modelers, and their critics. Scholars who approach evolutionary transitions from thermodynamic, informational-computational, evolutionary, developmental, integrative, and systemic perspectives are particularly desired. We will seek to compare logistic, exponential, and superexponential models arising from a variety of complexity transition definitions, and finally, explore a range of scenarios these models propose for the future of innovation and sustainability, underscoring the great technical, political, economic, and social value of better scholarship and science in this area.<BR>
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