New IIS Honours module: 'The next great/small transformation' starting in September 2021
31 May 2021
Society is facing urgent and complex challenges, such as climate change, inequality, pandemics and digitisation. Because these issues are firmly rooted in existing societal structures and institutions, shaping societal transitions requires radical changes in the current way of thinking and acting. We must fundamentally change the way we deal with these pressing issues, but we don't know how. There is a high degree of uncertainty about the direction of the transitions and, moreover, there is often resistance to change. How to move forward?
In the new IIS honours module The next great/small transformation, we critically and constructively introduce students to conceptual and operational tools for shaping transitions. Using these tools, interdisciplinary teams of students will identify a societal transition challenge and develop a strategy to address it. At the same time, students are encouraged to critically evaluate the tools and suggest improvements.
The process central to this course consists of four iterative phases:
- Imagine: Identifying a transition challenge and identifying a vision that can address it;
- Connecting: Learning to understand the challenge at the system level;
- Acting: devising and implementing a simple intervention to realize the vision;
- Assessing: monitoring and evaluating the impact of the intervention (both of the intervention itself and the system-level impact).