Starting from the consideration that the human being and the physical world are naturally complex systems and that the division of knowledge between human, social, natural sciences and technologies, in turn divided into a tree of disciplinary subsets, is an artificial representation that distinguishes basic knowledge and methods, but does not exist in the problems of humanity and the universe, it was established to represent IUSS School with thematic focuses identified by three key words each. These themes are the topics through which IUSS School intends to build its own identity to be known, recognized and distinguished in the future. It is the way in which the autonomy of research and training activities finds responsibility towards stakeholders (Government, students and families, territory, institutions, companies) and network partners (cultural, research, development fabric) .

The themes have their own natural evolution and could change, be abandoned, replaced as a result of changes in the geographical, historical, social, cultural and industrial context. In this sense, the institutional responsibility for the action of IUSS School is also defined.

For the 2030 development plan, the 5 distinctive identity themes, shown in Fig. 2 and described below, were chosen: the first four represent development themes for training and research activities, the last represents an enabling theme for relations with the company and to generate the impact of the actions of the other four.

Theme 1: Mind - Body - Language
Theme 2: Climate - Sustainability - Risk
Theme 3: Complexity - Tought - Explanation
Theme 4: Space - Future - Data
Theme 5: Innovation - Impact - Value