About

The MIT Systems Awareness Lab Conference brings together researchers, educators, policymakers, and practitioners dedicated to the scientific study of transformative, ongoing systems change. This conference will explore the complex realities that shape human and societal systems through both tangible artifacts such as formal structures, policies, and metrics, and intangible mental models—habits of thought, feeling, and action. We believe meaningful and ongoing change only occurs through the intertwined evolution of both, and that the failure to do so accounts for recurring frustration with disappointing change efforts. We also believe that meaningful study of such change requires partnership between scientists, researchers and practitioners engaged in trying to bring it about. This year’s conference seeks to gather such communities in dialogue to advance a science of systems change.

Conference Objectives

To explore and develop transdisciplinary methods for documenting, measuring, and analyzing systems change processes.
To study the interaction between local change efforts and broader state- and province- wide change, within the context of international collaboration.
To bring researchers and practitioners together in dialogue, forming future research-practitioner partnerships.

Key Topics

• Complex Systems in Education: Understanding how underlying structures shaped by artifacts and mental models can change in interconnected ways.
• Transdisciplinary Methods: Innovative approaches to studying and measuring systems change over time.
• Generative Social Fields: Research on creating collaborative, safe, and innovative school, work, and community climates and cultures.
• Iterative and Compassionate Change Processes: Viewing systems change as an ongoing, evolutionary process involving reflection, compassion, learning, and growth.
• Case Studies and Lived Experiences: Capturing data through stories and outcomes from individuals and communities engaged in systems change.  Attendees will join participatory breakout sessions, learning from leading practitioners in the field.

Why Attend?

Participants will gain insights into cutting-edge research and methodologies for studying compassionate systems change, hearing from leading experts in our morning plenary keynotes and participating in afternoon breakout sessions led by systems change practitioners, sharing cases from the field. The conference will provide a participatory platform for sharing experiences, challenges, and opportunities in growing systems change in education, social impact, and other fields. Attendees will have the opportunity to network with experts and peers, fostering collaboration and innovation in their own work.