Setting Melbourne on a path towards regeneration won’t just happen. The Systems Lab asks questions and learns about how to shift conditions in our current systems to enable long-term change.
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Enabling conditions are the underlying factors that allow a system to behave the way it does. They’re not the visible events that you might see in your street or on the news, but the structures, incentives, relationships, rules, and norms that make those events possible.
By identifying enabling conditions, you shift from reacting to symptoms to changing the system itself – altering these conditions allows us to produce durable, systemic change rather than short-term fixes. Each of our enablers is set up as an action-research stream with a set of themes and supporting learning questions embedded within it to guide both the directional and reflective nature of the work.
New approaches to defining social, economic and political narratives that empower local communities
Holistic measures of progress that centre long-term social and ecological wellbeing in decision-making
Governance models that enable effective and adaptive decision-making in line with our current and future challenges
Investment paradigms that facilitate capital flows towards systemic activity in service of place-based regeneration
Research and learning practices that serve the wellbeing of people and planet by centering collaboration and diversity
Guiding our long-term work in the Systems Lab is a Research Council made up of academic leaders from seven universities across Melbourne.
In addition, we work with a diverse group of partners across Melbourne and beyond. Together, we explore how to shift underlying conditions to enable and accelerate a transition to a resilient and regenerative future.
