Growing a community of conversation and understanding

What purposeful action could sustain human flourishing in the Anthropocene? How might a systems community move from stasis to transformation? Which institutions and norms would allow systemic inquiry and collective responsibility to emerge?

The IFSR 2023 agenda for the cyber-systemic community sets out to grow a community of conversation and understanding. The point of departure is the Global Problématique, climate crisis, inequality, pandemics, and conflict, whose
complexity overwhelms traditional governance. The agenda argues that systems
thinking must be less about theory as doctrine and more about conversation as
practice: a turning-together in which meanings are co-created, differences recognised, and new norms tested. Conversation becomes inquiry, inquiry becomes relation, and relation opens the possibility of change.

The 2023 agenda thus emphasises institutional innovation. Existing rules, norms and governance structures tend to stabilise rather than transform. Yet the crises of the present function as perturbations: wave fronts that demand fresh epistemologies and more adaptive modes of organising. The task is not consensus but resonance, building a diverse cyber-systemic community able to cultivate “meta-differences that make a difference.”

·      First, the Global Problématique remains acute: systemic entanglements have deepened since Özbekhan’s diagnosis.

·      Second, conversation is foundational: it generates the conditions for shared meaning and collective action.

·      Third, institutions must evolve to cope with uncertainty and complexity.

·      Fourth, diversity is essential: not uniform agreement, but plural voices that enhance collective capacity.

·      Finally, the ambition is a shift from stasis to transformation, from incremental fixes to systemic change.

The 2023 agenda, then, is less a roadmap than an invitation: to convene, to converse, to co-create futures.

Klein, Louis, Pamela Buckle, Nam Nguyen, Rika Preiser, and Ray L. Ison. ‘Growing a Community of Conversation and Understanding: The 2023 Agenda for the Systems Community’. Systems Research and Behavioral Science 39, no. 6 (2022): 1103–7. https://doi.org/10.1002/sres.2919.