Founded in 2025, the Institute for Syntropic Research is a research platform dedicated to the study of syntropy, a ‘converging tendency’ (from gr. syn- and tropos). The concept of syntropy emerged in opposition to thermodynamic entropy, a ‘diverging tendency’, or energy dissipation. Syntropy, in turn, represents the energy concentration and preservation inherent to forms of life.

The entropy/syntropy relation applies not just to physical systems, but also to systems of language, which demonstrate degrees of integration and disintegration. They behave like ecological systems: there exist delicate balances, tipping points, and concrescent movement toward higher complexity. In the context of increasingly fragmented informational landscapes, we propose a new syntropic form of knowledge production.

As a collective of writers from various disciplines, the ISR represents an anchor point for interdisciplinary research on syntropy, drawing from philosophy, physics, systems theory, semiotics, cognitive sciences, ecology, and anthropology. As such, the ISR represents a textual model of CERN, operating through the collision of concepts. As Werner Heisenberg wrote in Physics and Philosophy: “in the history of human thinking the most fruitful developments frequently take place at those points where two different lines of thought meet.”