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Workstreams

A core component of the WG functionality is a decentralized array of Workstreams, each arranged around a topic of interest. These Workstreams may exist for several months and lead to a product and then adjourn, they may merge with other Workstreams, they may continue to take on new goals and objectives or they may choose to transform the nature of the work they are doing. To this end, each Workstream has a Convener, an expert in the field who calls the Workstream together and co-create the purpose, agenda, decision-making process and collaborative action that ensues. Conveners are aided by Fellows, who function as curators, logistics coordinators and administrative assistants. Workstreams are the primary creative spaces where the original work occurs, with meetings of the full Working Group taking on the role of reporting and coordinating spaces learning about the actions that is happening at the scale of the Workstreams. Here’s an early picture of the 11 Workstreams currently in operation! The specific titles of the Workstreams are subject to change but are illustrative of the focus.

Members of this Workstream will examine and document pathways to professions in Transformations Systems Mapping & Analysis including a listing and detailed description of relevant undergraduate graduate degree programs at Universities across the globe and career opportunities in this emerging field. We fully expect this Workstream to illustrate patterns including areas of strength to build upon as well as gaps to pay attention to for the development of this emerging field, and are looking to provide a skeleton of “building blocks” to let the workstream self-organize. This Workstream also plans to look ahead at the careers a regenerative world would require, and to plant the seeds to build capacity for those skills. This Workstream is currently preparing for its first convening!

Convener

David Takahashi, organizer of the Denver/Boulder Regenerative Hub, USA

Fellow

Mauricio Oporto, Restoration Ecologist, Sacred Valley, Peru

Members of this Workstream will focus on the transformations systems associated with both crisis and opportunity. Mapping the anatomy of crisis includes response and opportunity – linked to work already underway in Anthropocene Mobilization – that is developing a research agenda around core questions associated with transformation systems mapping and analysis. This Workstream is currently preparing for its first convening!

Convener

Per Olsson, Stockholm Resilience Center, Sweden

Fellow

Stephen Mejia, Stockholm Resilience Center, Sweden & Los Angeles CA, USA

This Workstream will focus on a place-based initiative that examines transformations systems across the vast watershed of the  Gulf of Maine (one of the most rapidly warming bodies of water on the planet). Members will be developing the concept of a “Transformations Transect” that links rural and urban and more closely examine the “green shoots” of change that are emerging. This is now aligning with activities in many places around the world – such as Costa Rica and Scotland – but will remain the “skunkworks” or R&D site for the wider Transformations Systems Mapping & Analysis working group.  This Workstream (and wider WG) now has a physical location, a small office on Commercial Street in Portland, Maine as part of the New England Ocean Cluster. This Workstream held its first convening on June 26, 2020, and its second on July 29, 2020! We are currently working on developing a map of the transforming seafood system(s) in the Gulf of Maine, as well as an online training program to integrate different frameworks like GIS mapping, governance baselining, and more to catalyze positive change at the bioregional level. A virtual design charette for the course will be held on August 24th, 26th, 31st, and September 3rd.

Convener

Glenn Page, President, SustainaMetrix, Portland, Maine, USA

Fellow

Sam Matey, Anthropocene Analyst/Intern SustainaMetrix Gorham Maine USA

Members of this Workstream will explore personal transformation such as the psycho-cultural transformations in the Anthropocene and the exploring the implications of embodied cognitive science for systems transformation. This Workstream recognizes that profound transformation in all human systems is required to achieve climate stability at levels preventing catastrophic impacts on human and natural communities and will work on understanding how the emerging field of transformations systems mapping & analysis can be developed with this in mind. This Workstream held its first convening on July 20, 2020! At our first meeting, people intimately shared their personal inner dimensions, discussing their personal journeys, experiences, and emotions that led them to this work. As of July 30, 2020, this workstream was in the process of using a shared online whiteboard map to post relevant questions to guide future inquiries for the workstream.

Convener

Lee Eyre, Ph.D Researcher in Transformation at the University of York, UK

Fellow

Katharina Braun, Windesheim University of Applied Sciences, Honours College, Zwolle, Netherlands

Members of this Workstream will be mapping who’s involved in Transformations Systems Mapping & Analysis around the globe – where are they working and what are they doing? Members of this Workstream will also conduct a detailed review of systems mapping software technologies – when they are most appropriate to use – and promising examples of integration across technologies to advance application of multiple methods of mapping, big data, visualization to understand transformation dynamics through case and use examples. The members will likely generate a mapping product that allows us to better see the “ecosystem” of people involved in this field as well as the software and potential for innovation. About 55 people were interested in this workstream at its inception. Most eventually proved to be very interested in the findings, but not necessarily the process, leading to a winnowing to a group of 10, from around the world, who were more deeply committed. This Workstream is currently reaching out to these core members, with both small-group convenings and one-to-one discussions!

Convener

Scott David, Innovation Director at Shapeable, Geneva, Switzerland

Fellow

Juliana Bohórquez Pinzón, Founder SysLab Bogotá, Columbia

Members of this Workstream will develop transformations systems collaboratives between Latin America and Africa. There are an increasing number of strategic initiatives launched by countries of the South, such as Agenda 2063 of the African Union. South-South cooperation is at the very heart of these initiatives. They are promising, but can only deliver relevant results if they create transformational change across scales from local, regional, transboundary to global.  This Workstream will explore and map these types of interactions. This Workstream held its first convening on July 21, 2020! The common gravitation was around using this space to grow and co-create together. We are leaving the system open to develop organically to suit the needs and interests of all our members. We decided that we will continue to explore how and what exchanges are happening, and are developing a “master concept note” bringing these ideas together frame the collaboration of this workstream.

Conveners

Tsitsi Maradze, Professional Consultant, Harare, Zimbabwe and Melina Angel, Biomimicry Expert, Bogotá, Columbia

This Workstream is focused on developing and mapping a detailed interdisciplinary theory and actionable, mixed practitioner/research knowledge-base of “Just Transitions” and how that can inform the developing field of Transformations Systems Mapping & Analysis. This will likely include the development of a cross-discipline, conceptual forming annotated academic and grey literature, as well as other, practitioner-derived published material that covers the evolution of the field (i.e. cases, literature, methods, principles, land-based decolonial approaches) This Workstream held its first convening on June 30, 2020! We are currently exploring our shared and distinct understandings of the idea of transformation, have highlighted key constructive tensions, foregrounded a desire to not replicate “Western-only” perspectives, and begun a bibliometric analysis of papers defining and using the idea of transformation.

Convener

Katharine McGowan, Assistant Professor, Social Innovation Mount Royal University, Calgary, Canada

Fellow

Sam Matey, Anthropocene Analyst/Intern SustainaMetrix Gorham Maine USA

Members of this Workstream are focusing on the development of a tool-kit as an introduction to Transformations Systems Mapping & Analysis that would have products such as a glossary of terms, description of the practice and examples. There will likely be a detailed listing of global data bases that already exist and that have been integrated in some way to be useful for decision making (i.e En-ROADS Climate interactive, Sea Around Us, Global Fishing Watch) as well as other examples of and concepts for integrating gaming as part of the strategy to better see, connect and accelerate large scale systems change. This Workstream currently has about 35 members and held three first convenings, to accommodate members in different time zones! They are currently synchronizing on how to bring in new perspectives, a design process to develop a toolkit, and a clear definition of transformations systems and the purpose of the toolkit. They have already decided to use the Stanford Five Principles of Design Thinking to guide their process, and are planning to meet once a month from August through December.

Convener

Kirk Bergstrom, President WorldLink and Gurpreet Singh, Skoll Foundation California, USA

Fellow

Dylan O’Neil, Systems Mapper and Graduate Student, University of Colorado, Boulder.

This Workstream will focus on the development of examples of integrated and holistic “measurement scorecards” that combine both qualitative and quantitative fields for tracking progress and learning in a transformations system. Examples include scorecards that explore process and outcomes of the analysis of governance response to ecosystem change. This Workstream held its first convening on June 23, 2020, and its second on July 10, 2020! They are exploring a “polylocal” framing, looking at distinct yet interconnected geographies of change.

Convener

Bill Baue, r3.0 Connecticut USA

Fellow

Hugo Araujo, Founder 7Vortex, Brussels, Belgium & Bogotá, Columbia

Members of this Workstream will focus on the development of a unifying framework that provides a foundational, systems-based integration of the SDGs and planetary conditions, as essential dimensions of one framework, and not separate elements. This Workstream held its first convening on July 6, 2020!

Convener

Jim Ritchie Dunham, Institute for Strategic Clarity, Massachusetts USA

Fellow

Adam Hejnowicz, Visiting Research Associate, Department of Biology, University of York; Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield.

Members of this Workstream will focus on the Working Group itself, serving an integration role, supporting the use of the principles, identifying resource needs, crafting the wider story, and ensuring our focus on diversity and inclusion in the process. Many control mythologies exist around mapping, often to maintain structures and systems that hinder our innate capacity to evolve new and more equitable ways of being and belonging. We invite you to be part of a team that creates the story of the WG in a way that builds new possibilities for change and engagement with a major focus on issues of inclusion and diversity and seeing systems of transformational change. This team will not actively participate in fundraising but will better understand the resource needs of each Workstream as well as the systems and social processes through which funding could be leveraged for the R&D that is required for field development. This Workstream held its first convening on June 24, 2020!

Convener

Suzanne Bowles, Cattail Strategy Senegal Africa & Glenn Page, SustainaMetrix, Portland Maine

Fellow

Sam Matey, Anthropocene Analyst/Intern SustainaMetrix Gorham, Maine & Katharina Braun, Windesheim University of Applied Sciences, Honours College, Zwolle, Netherlands