Abstract:

Faced with prospects of increasingly dire environmental conditions, practitioners and researchers are turning to regenerative approaches that re-establish and strengthen relationships within ecological systems and support thriving futures. Calls to action are spreading across diverse communities as they connect to learn from each other, advocate for generational responsibility and create changes that generate hope. Similarly, rethinking education towards a global common good and considering whether learning fit for the 21st century ought to be organised as a collective social endeavour has organisations such as United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) advocating for participatory processes and shared action within complex knowledge ecosystems and involving diverse stakeholders. Such approaches are evident in transdisciplinary education settings where students, teachers and researchers partner with industry, public sector organisations and communities to tackle trans-contextual challenges. Here, transdisciplinary initiatives are designed to privilege diversity, participatory engagement, mutual learning, collective action, and systems change.

In this paper, we report on a design-based study that recognises these challenges and opportunities, exploring: What if learning environments and educational initiatives were more like regenerative ecosystems? Having emerged from an ecological worldview, regenerative practices are underpinned by principles of living systems thinking where, for example, the design and development of environments focus on working with complexity, co-evolution, adaptability, place-based thinking, and collective decision-making about desirable futures to enable, in effect, (interdependent) flourishing over time. From a learning perspective, we describe and distil these regenerative principles operating in different disciplines, professions and cultures that go beyond sustainable and resilient ways of responding to shocks and stresses in systems. Similarly, we examine regenerative practices operating in diverse situations and environments that build the capability to do and be more than was possible before. Having analysed these principles and practices in terms of generative learning, systems and futures, we then use the findings to innovate and shape the educational design of a postgraduate transdisciplinary subject (Designing Regenerative Futures Studio), including its assessment tasks as inquiry probes. We speculate on the power of this research-based collective learning approach for understanding future-oriented educational initiatives that can anticipate change and generate opportunities for creative, bold reform.

Keywords:

Regenerative principles, ethical futures, transdisciplinary, generative learning, participatory action.