The scientific programme was put together by Simon Levin, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University and Peter Raven, Director Emeritus of the Missouri Botanical Garden, St Louis. The workshop was inaugurated by the Master of St John's College. In addition to Dr Levin and Dr. Raven, the list of speakers included David Krakauer, Director of the Santa Fe Institute, Mimi Koehl, Professor of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and Luis Amaral, Professor of Physics at Northwestern University.

Professor Sir Dasgupta delivered the final talk at the workshop, and at the organizers' request, gave a summary of my work over the years on the population-environment-poverty nexus.

Cambridge Workshop: Celebrating 20 years of JSMF’s support for Complex Systems Science Website