About this event

Addressing today’s social and environmental challenges demands a fresh perspective on the systems that shape our everyday lives – energy, transport, food, healthcare. To be transformative, investments and policies must go beyond technological solutions to tackle the intricate networks of people, rules, and resources that underpin these configurations.

In this Open Learning Series session, organised by the Deep Transitions Lab and TIPC, we’ll explore the principles of socio-technical systems thinking and introduce the Pentagonal map for systems analysis, a tool that helps us build a view of interconnected elements to inform investment or policy decisions.

We’ll learn:

how systems are made up of people, the resources they use, and the formal and informal rules they follow across multiple dimensions;
how a systemic approach helps different actors work together, share knowledge, and better understand the complex societal challenge they seek to address; and
why uncovering the vulnerabilities of a system helps us helps target interventions for transformation, find opportunities for collaboration and complementary actions, and surface hidden patterns.

We’ll identify practical opportunities to integrate this thinking into our own work, and through real-world examples we'll discover how public and private investors have adapted and incorporated the approach:

to support experimentation in the food system through investment in alternative proteins; and
to address regional challenges in Catalonia, such as depopulation of rural areas and landscape resilience.

Contributors

Anna Palli, Head of Technology Watch Office and Quality Assurance Office, IRTA
Richard Azarnia, Co-founder / Co-principal, The Good Investors
Johan Schot, Founder, TIPC and the Deep Transitions Lab
Diana Velasco, Deputy Director, Deep Transitions Lab
Victoria Shaw, Programme Director, TIPC
Natalie Laurence, Communications Manager, Deep Transitions Lab

Rethinking systems: A new lens for policy and investment