Notes on a just and regenerative future

On our blog, you’ll read contributions from a range of people and organisations who share our enthusiasm and our ambition for a just and regenerative future, and our desire to learn from each other.

‘Systems Only Change When People Do’: My Learning From Basecamp and the Future of Protein

Roberta Iley is the acting Associate Director for UK/Europe at Forum for the Future. Here she looks back on how participating in the School of System Change Basecamp programme in 2019 has impacted her work transforming food systems. When I joined Forum for the Future, I knew I …
- #Alumni Stories
by Roberta Iley

August 26, 2021
‘Fighting Against Business as Usual’: How Basecamp Helped the Journey Towards Circularity at Taylors of Harrogate

Sebastian Robson completed the School of System Change Basecamp programme in 2020. Here he shares how the course helped him to implement a circular economy initiative for Yorkshire Tea, one of the biggest tea brands in the UK. Tell us about your background. I’m from a little …
- #Alumni Stories
by Sebastian Robson

August 19, 2021
‘No Solo Climbing’: Putting System-Led Design Into Practice

Kate Goodwin is an Australian designer and researcher experimenting with ways to help people think, feel and act in areas of social, economic and environmental complexity. Currently experimenting with the title ‘system-led designer’, she has over 16 years experience in user …
- #Alumni Stories
by Kate Goodwin

June 28, 2021
Exploring Democratic Culture in Brazil: A Systems Story

Thaise Kemer, reflects on her experience of participating in Basecamp and shares her journey of seeking out Systems Practice to better address the complexities of exploring democratic culture in Brazil. What led me to the School? I work at Sivis Institute, a non-governmental, …
- #Alumni Stories
by Thaise Kemer

May 26, 2021
Healing Myself to Heal the World

Dr. Narges Baniasadi shares her experience of participating in the School of System Change’s Basecamp course in 2020, and tells us how she’s using what she learned to impact the entrepreneurship system. My journey from disillusionment and burnout to the School, and my new plans …
- #Alumni Stories
by Dr. Narges Baniasadi

January 26, 2021
Power Dynamics: A Systemic Inquiry

Why this article? Purpose and position The word power keeps popping up wherever I turn. Through my ten years of doing my doctorate action research it was all over my notes and reflections. I kept pushing it out of what I was writing about and feeling scared to even go there as …
by Anna Birney

January 20, 2021
Systemic Patterns: Supporting Process Design and Facilitation

Facilitation is a creative process of bringing awareness to the world. It is about sensing and working with people, interactions, relationships and other dimensions. A lot of this is about following the emerging process and helping to find the potential and the unfolding …
by Anna Birney

November 27, 2020
Systems Practices: What Might These Be?

At the School of System Change we support people to navigate multiple approaches, tools and methods for systems change, because we believe there are many ways to do this work. Regularly, we are asked “How do you know whether what we are doing is systemic?”. Through our …
by Anna Birney

October 4, 2019
Do I Really Need to Do ‘Inner Work’ to Be a Systems Changer?

This blog is Anna's summary and reflection after a call with a group of systems practitioners exploring this topic and draws on their ideas and thinking. I often share the resistance people have to doing their 'inner work' — the process of deliberately changing yourself through …
- #Inner Work
by Anna Birney

February 27, 2019
What Is Systems Change? An Outcome and Process

The purpose of this blog is not to give you the definitive answer to this question, or to do a full literature review. It is very much where I have got to on my exploration in research and practice. Here I will say what a system is, how they might change — and then defined …
by Anna Birney

September 2, 2016