Systems Innovation conference, 2024 – Alan Hudson’s notes (share)

Barbara founded Global Development (GD) to disrupt siloed thinking and foster systems change for a life-regenerative future. She believes that embodied awareness and imagination are essential for collective transformation. In her work, she maps systems, cultivates caring networks, and designs collaborative structures for the emerging wellbeing society.

In this interactive session, Barbara will share insights from the ten-year “values-based urban living lab” she has stewarded as part of the OurCity initiative in cities worldwide. This novel participatory approach places the values of trust and care at the heart of urban innovation, prioritizing wellbeing over economic growth.

It highlights the transformative power of imagination, memory, and power sharing to change how we live together. Participants will experience how art can catalyze connection and collective imagination—or what is referred to as civic imagination—to create meaningful, values-driven systems change in communities.

What interventions are needed to steer toward sustainable futures? How can design and creative practices help organizations shift from a siloed, techno-centric view to systemic, long-term thinking?

Join Zeynep for an inspiring session on driving change with Transition Design! Whether you’re new to the concept or looking to deepen your understanding, this interactive session will inspire you with innovative strategies, practical case studies, and valuable tools to address complex challenges.

This session will be led by Zeynep Falay von Flittner, founder of Falay Transition Design Collective, learn how she combines systems thinking, futures thinking, and human-centric design to support companies and networks in building new capabilities.

Nadim Choucair – Facilitative consultant enabling systems innovation at the intersection of the public and private sector, Urban transitions at Dark Matter Labs, and podcast "curiosity that matters"

Georgia Cameron – Policy Innovation Lead at Dark Matter Labs, Working on the EU Climate Neutral & Smart Cities 2030 Mission, Strategist, Former environment lawyer

Alex Fleming – Policy Lab UK, Design, Policy, Systems change, Imagination, Futures, Senior Design and Project Lead at Policy Lab UK

Mariana Mirabile – Working at OECD Environment as a policy analyst applying systems thinking to enable governments to transition towards their net zero goals

From the local to the national level and around the world, governments are looking for new ways to address the complex challenges they are facing, such as climate change, migration, or inequality. In this context, systems innovation has enormous potential to inform new ways of mobilizing public sector capacity that go beyond bureaucratic and siloed interventions. From Sweden to the UK to Catalunya, from portfolios to ecosystems, systemic approaches are starting to gain traction. In this panel, we will explore how systems thinking can help the public sector address complex challenges. We will draw upon the experience and insights of Mariana Mirabile of the OECD Environment, Alex Fleming from the Policy Lab UK and Georgia Cameron the Policy Innovation Lead at Dark Matter Labs with the panel moderated by Nadim Choucair.

Executive Director at Dark Matter Labs, Professor at RMIT, Board Member at BLOXHUB, Senior Innovation Associate at The Young Foundation

In a context of climate breakdown and technological disruption, Indy’s work, and that of Dark Matter Labs, focuses on accelerating societal transition towards collective care, shared agency, systems approaches, long-termism and interconnectedness.

Indy’s work explores the ‘dark matter’ – the invisible systems responsible for producing the majority of the world around us. Indy is an inspirational talker on all kinds of dark matter from policy and regulation to finance and data, governance and organisational culture, identity and democratic participation.

Indy Johar is a Professor at RMIT, a Board Member at BLOXHUB and co-founder of Dark Matter Laboratories. DML applies complex systems science to Urban & Regional Renewal that takes the form of an autonomous, not-for-profit, public-interest laboratory.

Climate breakdown, loss of predictability and insurability, changes to capital markets

Mass multi-polar, multi-perspectival transition (diverse contexts and values)

Securitisation of everything, risk and security, securonomics, changes to dynamics

No transition without justice, systemic justice is key for collaborative progress

Inequality and the loss of solidarity

High interest rates, high inflationary context, changes landscape for innovation and possibilities

The rise of the environmental right in politics, caution re use of boundary words. Systems folks should not talk about [bounded, exclusionary] communities

Labouring the transition

Constraints are shifting what’s possible in the innovation landscape e.g. no carbon budget —> innovation within that context of constraints

Flooding in-formation, memes of patterns

The scale of the shift

In accelerating volatility

New allies – central banks, security services, inter-generational wealth, civil society/grassroots, conversations rather than one-way communication

Security and resilience of systems will be key – so, understanding the landscape of systm risks, and making “pre-emptive peace strikes”

Collusion and corruption for organisational survival e.g. kristallnacht allowed to be defined as force majeure, with no insurance payments, in return for payment to nazis

Explosion of sovereignties – an agentified world view [forthcoming paper]

[No mention of Audrey Tang’s work on pluriverses]

Systems scaffolding as systems capabilities challenges – see recent paper on portfolios as distributed governance – notion of portfolio system capabilities

Trans-systems work

Risks of reifying systems and boundaries e.g. in communion/relationship is a better way of thinking/talking about things that being part of a bounded/exclusionary community

Systemic gap between price and value ([that is prices do not include externalities]

Building compound learning organizations and systems

“Systems cohere through learning”

Digital autonomous micro-trusts e.g. super-smart electricity meters

Political economy of systems change – including freedom, as freedom to care

The data and information question: Moving beyond open data in a landscape where security and risk are the priorities [whose priorities?]

[Lack of time for participation in this session and others]

Karima: Co-Founder & Executive President Tamkeen Community Foundation for

Human Development, Member of the Club of Rome

Louis: Systems Researcher & Convenor – Author, Speaker, Coach | Secretary General, International Federation for Systems Research (IFSR)

Systems approaches to change are a promise of wholeness and agency. How do they meet a silent, organic transformation? How do they meet the wholeness of the human condition and our humanity? How do they facilitate co-creating the conditions for human co-flourishing and societal harmony? How do they realise humanising social ecosystems? How do we recognise the future in the present?

Since 2009 the Tamkeen Community Foundation for Human Development in Tangier/Morocco witnesses the metamorphic transformation of social ecosystems, like neighbourhoods, communities of practice, schools, and the education system. This session is an invitation to grow as shared understanding of metamorphic transformation from co-reflecting lived experiences and stories.

Harmonious tensions

Safe and nurturing spaces and conversations

Co-reflecting and growing into love

Tamkeen as semantic field, questions and quest, reflecting and realizing

Amplifying the beauty

“nothing has changed, but everything has changed” – now love, not violence, brings us together

“the intimacy of transformation” (Karima)

loving governance, loving systems

[Q for Karima – what has led/brought you to be so loving?]

“Understanding” as a sensory, motor, and e-motional thing

com-prehending as grasping together

A humanising school

Barbara Bulc’s mention of Tamkeen’s efforts as being al-chemy, al-chemical [nice nod to Arabic and allah]

Trust leads to ease in the tension

“Living the future [in the present] to build the future” – collapsing the linearity of time

In arabic, to talk about the future, you add an s to the present verb, bringing the future into the present

Reflecting on what is and what is possible – widening the field of possibiliites

“creating conditions for love and life to blossom”

a safe and nurturing place, a womb (“meccam mekeen” (spelling?)) – school, village, society, governance, AI

nose/proprioception – one’s ability to point at one’s nose. but for some things, you need a mirror

mirrors to see, realize/recognize, and realize/bring into being/strengthen our shared humanity

institutional conditions for emergence

a “flow field” of resonance

“a sense of self that rests in love”

Louis – systems thinking has a promise of wholeness and agency

“we are the gardener and the garden”

reflection and appreciation

[Other initiatives that are similar to Tamkeen? Efforts to use Tamkeen’s experience to inform/encourage other initiatives – Tamkeen as a mirror for others]

Realise/realise

Recognise/comprehend

Mirroring

Widening the reflective process

Club of Rome

Following propensity, the flow of opportunities, apertures/openings

How to get out of the way

Transcends Morocco, but it’s not about spreading Tamkeen

Proprioception

Wishing to become co-mirrors and co-imagination

Worldview sets the scene for ways of being, but does not dictate

[Tamkeen as a form of enlightenment]

Looking for new trusted partners, including funders

Keen for me to help. Potential avenues include TAI

Potential Morocco visit.

Follow up meeting on 7th or 10th October, around 8th/9th Club of Rome – Karima and Louis will both be in London.

For some decades now, it has been recognized that systems thinking holds huge potential for how we manage organizations, for how we think about leadership, for overcoming the silos of a reductionist approach, and for developing organizations that are more like complex adaptive systems rather than machines. However, the challenges of introducing systems approaches into organizations based on very different principles are no small order. In this panel, with participants who are deeply grounded in the realities of working with large organizations, we will discuss the challenges and opportunities of systems thinking for organizations.

Benjamin Taylor: Chief Executive The Public Service Transformation Academy, Systems, Cybernetics, Complexity, Public service, Transformation business evolutionary

James Stauch: Systems Educator ATCO Spacelab, Executive Director, Institute for Community Prosperity at Mount Royal University, Visiting fellow Skoll Centre, University of Oxford – "map the system"

Victoria Herrington: Social scientist, Systems leadership, Innovation, Global policing & public safety, Associate Fellow Saïd Business School, University of Oxford

Carl Davies: Head of Global Consultancy at TeleTracking. PhD Candidate – Leadership, Organisations & Behaviour, (Complex Adaptive Systems Dynamics) – structure/agency

Vicky – human learning systems/Toby Lowe mention, how to reward learning/include learning in performance indicators, dancing with the system

Benjamin – systems as a way of thinking about complex responsive processes of relating (hertfordshire school, chris mowles etc.)

Carl – “a complexity based governance model”

The goal of the session will be to lift the lid on the model we have developed at Brink to bring different parts of the system together to innovate on systemic challenges and move the entire system towards a better future. This is a model that we have termed Innovation Missions, powered by Behavioural Innovation, our underpinning approach to delivering on the promise of innovation, a combination of the behavioral sciences and innovation methodologies.

We have used this model to bring together innovators to develop new kinds of oxygen concentrators and service models that are capable of saving lives in low-resource settings and to work with Macmillan Cancer Support to address health inequalities and how they impact those experiencing cancer-related fatigue.

In the session itself, I’ll go into detail on what Innovation Missions are, how to deliver them using examples, case studies, practical tips and some of the core theories that sit underneath it all.

Overlap between behavioural science and innovation

[Balance and blend of focus on actors/behaviours, and systems/institutions, and two-way relationships and emergence]

Role of innovation missions in complex systems, and how you can design them to enhance outcomes.

My Q: Any tension between the ideas of a mission (focused on particular outcomes), and the emergence nature of change in complex systems?

Translating Systems Thinking into practical, real-world applications can be challenging. How can we collaboratively create outcomes that are compelling enough to influence policy, or accessible enough for widespread adoption? What process can we follow to form systemic maps and transform these into actionable blueprints?

In this session, Teun will guide us through the process of participatory modelling through use-cases: from a blank canvas to causal maps and eventually, visual data-driven interfaces.

Teun has led the processes of numerous complexity projects across government and private sectors in diverse domains. The common thread in these stakeholder-centered projects is the System Dynamics process.

Systems Dynamics a la Forrester/Meadow

“to frame, understand and discuss”

EN-ROADS platform

Equations and leverage points

root causes [?!]

reduce uncertainty [?!]

model holistically [?]

Joss’s comments on the quantitative/qualitative divide – I do not think this is the issue. Rather, it’s about what mental models/understandings of how change happens that one is working with

In this session, Mariana will share insights from Catalonia (Spain)and Dublin (Ireland), where the OECD is supporting goverments to apply a systems approach to climate policy. Mariana will describe the tools used, and the challenges and opportunities of applying systems thinking in the public sector. She will also share lessons learnt on the potential for combining a systems lens with a challenge-led approach for policy implementation.

Mariana is an economist with a passion to improving systems based at the OECD Environment Directorate. Mariana has over 10 years of experience in policy analysis on climate change. She co- developed the process Systems Innovation for Net Zero, designed to help countries, regions and cities identify transformative policies able to shape systems that work for people and the planet.

Systems innovation for net zero

Policy coherence

Behaviours and institutions [Marian uses the term system, whereas I see system as being both individuals/behaviours and institutions/patterns]

Changing systems (ie. institutions), through policies, to support the emergence of new (patterns of) behaviour

“The potential for change and how the system is organized, matter more than the parts of the system” (using iceberg illustration – see the slide if you can find it]

“Are the policies ambitious enough to address policy lock-in?” But, what is the nature of lock in (implementation gaps), and why is ambition seen as the primary driver of effectiveness?

Implementation challenges

[Not enough on the political economy of policy change. Alex Penn’s question was also kind of about this e.g. if UK government is focused on growth more than sustainability, where does that leave you in terms of the scope for policy change]

[Invocation of “political will” is pretty disappointing]

Idea that a (concrete, and time-limited) challenge-led approach adds to a systems approach, helping to increase the chances of implementation

Supporting work and collaboration across siloes

Orchestra conductors

Nice tweaking of OECD tag-line of “better policies, for better lives”, to “better systems, for better lives”. Or, “better policies, for better systems, for better lives”. But then, what is the system/context that shapes what policies might actually be effectively implemented?