The Origins Institute (OI) is an interdisciplinary research institute based in Hamilton, Ontario at McMaster University. It began its operations as an institute on July 1, 2004.
The OI's vision is to promote origins research that help answer fundamental questions in science, such as: "How and why the universe began?", "How did stars, galaxies and planets form?", "What is the origin of matter and of the elements?", "How did life begin on Earth, and can it also develop on other planets?", "What was the nature of the Universal Ancestor, and how did life evolve from it?", and "How did intelligent beings arise and evolve on Earth"?.
The Origins Institute research can be categorized into 6 interconnecting themes, such as: space-time (particle physics), elements and matter (nuclear astrophysics), structure of the universe (astronomy), life (evolutionary biology, astrobiology), species (biodiversity), and humanity (anthropology, psychology).
Professional members within the institute hail from several fields, including astrobiology, astrophysics, biology, chemistry, biochemistry, psychology, mathematics and anthropology.
Ralph Pudritz, an established theoretical astrophysicist from McMaster, spearheaded the OI project and is its first director. Jonathon Stone is a computational biologist from McMaster, and is the institute's associate director. Well-known academics David Deamer, Martin Rees and Stuart Kauffman sit on the OI advisory council.
Within the next few years, the Origins Institute hopes to establish the first Canadian graduate program devoted to research in astrobiology.
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One of the focuses of the Origins Institute is public outreach, and to that end it promotes an annual season of public lectures and weekly colloquia that draw in top scientists from around the world. The OI also hosts scientific conferences that address origins themes. Its first meeting, entitled 'Astrobiology and the Origins of Life' was held at McMaster in May 2005. The second, 'The Genomics Revolution and the Origin of Humanity' was held in August 2006, and the third, 'Origins of Dark Energy', organized jointly with the Perimeter Institute, was held in May 2007. A fourth conference, called Darwin's Legacy: Natural Selection as an Organising Principle in Science, will be held at McMaster University from May 25th-29th, in celebration Darwin's 150th anniversary of the "Origin of Species".
The Origins Institute offers a 3 year Specialization for second-year undergraduate students who are registered in a 'home' department at McMaster. Students are selected based on academic achievement and are required to complete a research thesis based on an Origins theme.