Welcome to Systems Thinking Voices in Canada!
Some situations can be understood by examining their parts separately. Others are more fully understood by seeing how the parts are related, how they change over time, and how their interactions produce consequences that no one part creates alone.
Systems thinking helps us make these relationships visible.
Across Canada, people have been using systems thinking in education, science, the humanities, human and animal healthcare, business, agriculture, public policy, engineering, environmental stewardship, community development and everyday life. They have worked through many traditions—including Indigenous systems awareness, general systems theory, system dynamics, cybernetics, complexity science, systems engineering, soft and critical systems approaches, systemic design and other forms of relational inquiry.
Yet much of this work remains scattered among institutions, regions, disciplines, and generations. People doing related work may use different terms, belong to different professional communities, or simply be unaware of one another.
Systems Thinking Voices in Canada (STVIC) exists to help bring these parts of the story together. Like a system of blood vessels, the STVIC web-based project is waiting for blood cells to flow through carrying information to and around the diverse organs in the body. Or a roadmap waiting for cars to travel along its network of highways and side roads connecting people in the local communities to each other in their shared geography. Fresh meanings can emerge as the expanded view becomes apparent.
A Living Directory and Shared Memory
The STVIC website operates as a slow-burn long-term genealogical directory of people, projects, learning activities and community resources which collectively make up the Canadian context systems thinking community.
It reaches backward to recognize the people and ideas that helped establish Canada’s systems thinking inheritance. It looks at the present by introducing today’s learners, educators, practitioners and researchers. It also looks forward helping the next generation discover the people, methods and information networking strategies from which they can learn.
The STVIC directory includes experienced professionals, students and lifelong learners. Some contributors have devoted entire careers to systems science. Others are just beginning to recognise and develop their own systems thinking abilities. Each represents a different point along a continuing journey of learning.
No person, discipline or method provides a complete view of the field. By connecting many perspectives over time, we can develop a richer more wholistic understanding of systems thinking and how to integrate it more beneficially for Canada and the changing global village.
Find Your Way Through The Website
You can enter this community from wherever you are in your learning journey. You do not need to be an expert to join STVIC. Curiosity and a desire to learn are your most valuable travelling companions! Begin your website journey by browsing the next section below.
STVIC Introduction Video
STVIC FAQ
