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No more business as usual
Rethinking economic value for a post-Covid world. A national conversation has begun which is alarming, yet also familiar. It talks about costs and trade-offs, losses and accounts.…
Cafe System Change – Issue 2
Announcing a lighter companion to our System Change journal. The second issue is now available: [wpfilebase tag=file id=69 /] Please see the first copy : [wpfilebase tag=fileurl…
Our Conference – 9th May
Systems Connections: the Wellbeing Economy and Climate Emergency “Our climate is changing faster than we are. We need to speed up. The Rapid Transition Alliance is a…
New paper on renewable energy
What can be done to increase the share of electricity generated by renewable energy installations? Read this policy briefing from Jonathan Moss: [wpfilebase tag=file id=66 /]
May 24th – Our 10th anniversary conference
From systemic failure to a transition of civilization Thursday, May 24th, 2018, 10.00 – 16.30, Watershed 3, Bristol “Come and celebrate our 10th anniversary with a day…
Potential use of planetary boundary thinking in the UK
The planetary boundary (PB) concept is based on a set of nine boundaries for critical processes that regulate the functioning of the earth’s ecosystems at a global…
Scanning Our Future Dialogue Group
An invitation to an afternoon seminar – July 25th pm from 12. 30 to 4.00 pm. where we will explore the driving factors that will affect the…
Training to The Royal Society on Systems Thinking and Decision-Making
The Schumacher Institute’s Martin Sandbrook and Douglas Owen were recently invited by The Royal Society to deliver a training course designed to help policy advisors get a…
The problem of using examples to understand Action Experiment
By Martin Sandbrook, Learning programmes Director When I am teaching people about action experiment, they understandably ask me for examples. When I respond, I often sense that…
Submission to Labour Party consultation on Industrial Strategy
Could a modern industrial strategy provide a vehicle to help achieve the economic transformation needed to address profound eco-system and social challenges? The Institute has submitted evidence…
Post-truth’ 1 : Spiritual leaders should not be too hasty in buying into ‘post-truth’ – it’s toxic
By Dr Jenneth Parker FSI Research Director Some spiritual leaders seem to be ready to embrace ‘post-truth’ as an opportunity to awaken people to ‘deeper truths’ of…
Graceful Collapse – Part 3 : Dynamic Reconfigurability and Resilience in Complex Systems
By Douglas Owen FSI In Part 1 and Part 2 of this blog series I have looked at the potential contribution of traditional ‘predict and withstand’ defences…
Graceful Collapse – Part 2: Common Mode Failure and Resilient Performance in Complex Systems
By Douglas Owen FSI In Part 1 of this blog series I looked at the contribution of traditional ‘predict and withstand’ defences in technical systems on their potential…
Graceful Collapse – Part 1: Traditional Defences and Resilience in Complex Systems
By Douglas Owen FSI In this blog I want to explore whether the traditional approaches we use to defend systems from harm can contribute to resilient performance…
Why do we need resilience anyway?
By Douglas Owen FSI To understand why we need systems and societies capable of resilient performance, we first have to understand what the problem is. The problem…
Systems Sustainability and Me at the Hub (London)
April 16th – a one day course in this popular series in London, see event details.
Meeting the Challenge of Special Educational Needs
A new one day course in London in early March sponsored by the Education and Training Foundation though their ELMAG fund, see event details.
The Systems Forum
The Systems Forum is an initiative of the UK Systems Society produced by The Schumacher Institute. Since the birth of modern systems thinking and practice (c. 1946)…
Systems Sustainability and Me – Feb 26th & 27th
This two-day course is an introduction to the relationship of systems and systems thinking to sustainability, your life and your livelihood. You will explore your assumptions and…
The Smart Hamlet concept proves exciting
Having attended their South West conference, Michael Clinton has written an article for the Housing Learning and Improvement Network (LIN), such was the interest in the Smart…
A pre-COP21 perspective
As we run up to COP 21 in Paris we have produced a discussion paper called ‘Carbon landscape: a pre-COP21 perspective’. This presents the picture of carbon…
If Complexity were a person, she would be a Socialist.
Jean Boulton on the politics of systems thinking. (Based on a post posted earlier this year on Duncan Green’s Oxfam blog). What are the implications of complexity…
How can you make learning stick when returning to work from a training course?
How often have you been fired up by something you have learned on a development programme? You return to work the day after the course all ready…
What will Bristol look like one day?
one day: Day One – Resilience, a Bristol 2015 funded project, continues to go from strength to strength and has released a series of videos sharing what…
Small is Powerful – E.F Schumacher’s ideas in the 21st century
“I certainly never feel discouraged. I can’t myself raise the winds that might blow us or this ship into a better world. But I can at least…
Videos from Small is Powerful – E.F. Schumacher’s ideas in the 21st century
On the 20th of June, over 130 delegates joined us to explore how E.F. Schumacher’s ideas have been translated into action in the 21st century. We welcomed members…
Did you know that Fairtrade is green?
To celebrate hosting the 9th International Fair Trade Towns Conference, Bristol Fairtrade Network has teamed up with Plastic Buddha to create a fantastic film on the Conference…
A review of Sustainable Economics by Keith Skene and Alan Murray
Review of Sustainable Economics: Context, challenges and opportunities for the 21st-century practitioner (Keith Skene and Alan Murray) By Ian Roderick, Director, The Schumacher Institute My initial thoughts about another book…