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AbstractResearch on complex systems is becoming more prolific, and there is a need to provide some point of orientation to researchers and practitioners that are drawing on the body of literature that informs the field of complexity research. In this paper, I aim to give an overview of the development of the field and offer some overarching trends and patterns that are recognizable in research on complex systems. The paper then draws on the work to provide six organizing principles of complex systems to inform practical implications and methods for studying and understanding complex systems.

AbstractThe challenges of the Anthropocene were pre‐empted by systems scholars in the exposition of the 'global problematique' and are now made manifest in what systems scholars called the polycrisis. These framings alert us to our human circumstances but to date, have done little to transform our manners of being and doing, as the polycrisis is an outcome of a profound governance crisis. Ongoing reflections, building on the framing offered by the global problematique, in the IFSR Conversations in 2023 addressed these issues. Advocating for more epistemological transparency in systems research was a major theme to emerge. Widening the gaze and embracing the full capacity of the cybersystemic perspective of systems research seeks to allow IFSR members, and cybersystemic scholars more generally, to harness their understandings and praxes to bring fresh momentum to navigating the polycrisis and governing for transformation.

AbstractIn his 1970 report to the Club of Rome, Hasan Özbekhan compiled an extensive collection of intersecting issues confronting humanity—the Global Problématique. Alas, half a century later, we find ourselves even further entrenched in this network of complex, systemic issues that some have framed the Anthropocene, a period new to human history. Collectively, we must take seriously the question:what purposeful action will aid human flourishing, create and sustain a viable space for humanity, in our ongoing co‐evolution with the Anthropocene‐Biosphere?Through ongoing reflections to this prompt, the theme of the IFSR's 2023 agenda iscommunity. At the heart of this community, we place emphasis on the role ofconversationto enable the co‐creation of a common (yet not necessarily shared)understanding. Collective efforts to grow and participate in this diverse cyber‐systemic community of conversation and understanding will enhance the capacity to shift from stasis towards transformative actions demanded by the Global Problématique. In the Batesonian sense, the prospect of making a meta‐difference that makes a difference is the emergent promise of our enterprise made collective.

AbstractFive clusters of concern arising from IFSR‐facilitated conversations with its organisational members are used to invite the broader systems community to rethink agency. It is argued that by addressing the cluster elements, potential will be co‐created for the systems community as a whole to help citizens venture beyond failing responses to the global problematique and the Anthropocene‐creating thinking in which we humans are trapped. The five clusters are as follows:

Exploring the in‐between: Growing a shared understanding is going beyond a competition of ideas or a clash of concepts. It is a joint exploration of the unknown in‐between.
Including the excluded: Systems research happens in open research ecosystems, not in disciplinary silos. It is transdisciplinary and constitutes a global discourse.
Living questions: Questions shape paradigms. Transcending paradigms starts from allowing the questions to have their own life, to grow and to dissolve, to improve and to transform.
Going beyond systems literacy: Learning to speak systems is one thing, proficiency in systems thinking, systems doing and systems being another. There is a difference between knowing and understanding that we may address as systems wisdom.
Rethinking agency: Agency goes from ego to eco, from me to we. Yet, it is not an either–or; it is ego and eco, me and we. To understand agency, we need to understand the 'and'.

"The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods for Social-Ecological Systems provides a synthetic guide to the range of methods that can be employed in social-ecological systems (SES) research. The book is primarily targeted at graduate students, lecturers and researchers working on SES, and has been written in a style that is accessible to readers entering the field from a variety of different disciplinary backgrounds. Each chapter discusses the types of SES questions to which the particular methods are suited and the potential resources and skills required for their implementation, and provides practical examples of the application of the methods. In addition, the book contains a conceptual and practical introduction to SES research, a discussion of key gaps and frontiers in SES research methods, and a glossary of key terms in SES research. Contributions from 97 different authors, situated at SES research hubs in 16 countries around the world, including South Africa, Sweden, Germany and Australia, bring a wealth of expertise and experience to this book. The first book to provide a guide and introduction specifically focused on methods for studying SES, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of sustainability science, environmental management, global environmental change studies and environmental governance. The book will also be of interest to upper-level undergraduates and professionals working at the science-policy interface in the environmental arena"--