Systems thinking and creative problem-solving

Express knowledge and understanding

• Participants have an overview of the most frequently used methods in systems thinking and creative problem-solving.

Apply knowledge and understanding

• Participants can apply those tools that are appropriate for the innovation challenge.
• Participants can identify appropriate boundaries for the challenge.

Communicate

• Participants can adopt a problem owner’s perspective to effectively summarise the challenge, describe the methods for solving that challenge and the implications of the proposed solutions.

Learning skills

• Participants are able to organise efficient and effective communication within interdisciplinary teams
• Participants are able to engage in the co-creation process

Sustainable development and innovation

• Leach, M., Rockström, J., Raskin, P., Scoones, I., Stirling, A. C., Smith, A., . . . Olsson, P. (2012). Transforming innovation for sustainability. Ecology and Society, 17(2). doi: 10.5751/ES-04933-170211
• van den Bergh, J. C. J. M., van Leeuwen, E. S., Oosterhuis, F. H., Rietveld, P., & Verhoef, E. T. (2007). Social learning by doing in sustainable transport innovations: Ex-post analysis of common factors behind successes and failures. Research Policy, 36(2), 247-259. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2006.11.001

Systems thinking and participatory systems mapping

• Allender, S., Owen, B., Kuhlberg, J., Lowe, J., Nagorcka-Smith, P., Whelan, J., & Bell, C. (2015). A community based systems diagram of obesity causes. PLOS ONE, 10(7), e0129683. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0129683
• Hovmand, P. S., Andersen, D. F., Rouwette, E. A. J. A., Richardson, G. P., Rux, K., & Calhoun, A. (2012). Group model-building ‘Scripts’ as a collaborative planning tool. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 29(2), 179-193. doi: 10.1002/sres.2105
• Videira N., Antunes P., Santos R. (2017) Engaging Stakeholders in Environmental and Sustainability Decisions with Participatory System Dynamics Modeling. In: Gray S., Paolisso M., Jordan R., Gray S. (eds) Environmental Modeling with Stakeholders. Springer, Cham

Creative problem solving

• Brown, T. (2009). Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation.
• Ness, I. J., & Søreide, G. E. (2014). The Room of Opportunity: Understanding phases of creative knowledge processes in innovation. Journal of Workplace Learning, 26(8), 545-560. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JWL-10-2013-0077
• Ness, I. J., & Riese, H. (2015). Openness, curiosity and respect: Underlying conditions for developing innovative knowledge and ideas between disciplines. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 6 (September 2015), 29-39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lcsi.2015.03.001
• Ness, I. J. (2017). Polyphonic Orchestration: Understanding how leaders facilitate creative knowledge processes in interdisciplinary groups working with innovation. European Journal of Innovation Management.
• Sawyer, R. K., & DeZutter, S. (2009). Distributed creativity: How collective creations emerge from collaboration. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 3(2), 81-92.

Birgit Kopainsky is professor in System Dynamics at the University of Bergen and the leader of the System Dynamics Group. She holds a PhD in agricultural economics and a master’s degree in Geography and Environmental Studies. 

Kopainsky's research explores the role that system dynamics can play in facilitating transformation processes in social-ecological systems such as the transformation towards sustainable and resilient agri-food systems. She conducts and supervises research both in Europe and in developing countries.

Ingunn Johanne Ness is a senior researcher and Cluster Leader at the Centre for the Science of Learning & Technology (SLATE). She has a PhD from the University of Bergen and a postdoc from SLATE. Ness leads the innovative research futures efforts in SLATE and carries out research on interdisciplinary collaboration, innovation, creativity, and leadership. 

Ness has a particular interest for the sociocultural approach and works with the world’s leading environments on sociocultural theory, the OSAT group at the University of Oxford and Webster Center for Creativity and Innovation. In addition, Ness collaborates with businesses, such as Equinor.

In 2025, the participants developed policy briefs addressing "just climate mitigation options". The scale of the policy brief could be global or more localised on regional/national/sub-national level.

Throughout the interdisciplinary course, they worked with FRIDA Global Climate Simulator — an integrated assessment model that helps explore the direct and indirect, anticipated and unanticipated, consequences of potential climate mitigation options. 

FRIDA is being developed in the Horizon Europe project WorldTrans – Transparent Assessments for Real People. 

The policy briefs developed during the course:

• Nature-based solutions to mitigate climate change in rapidly urbanising cities in Africa
• Climate change and deforestation: Reassessing existing policy initiatives in Ecuador
• Thread to thread: Enhancing EU clothing labels for sustainable choices
• Feeding cities sustainably
• Advancing solar subsidies in Indonesia
• Powering the future: Equitable economic strategies for a global energy transition
• Incentivising green cities for a healthy future: A case study in Nairobi
• Do you really need it? Reducing consumption of personal electronic devices in Scandinavian countries

In 2024, we partnered with UNESCO International Institute for Higher Education (UNESCO IESALC) to address how higher education institutions contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Participants focused on key social, environmental, and economic goals, exploring their interconnections and the role of universities in advancing them through teaching, research, public engagement, and governance.

Teams that produced high-quality drafts were invited to publish short blog posts on the UNESCO IESALC’s website and to collaborate with a UNESCO policy analyst on a joint publication.

The ten policy briefs of BSRS 2024:

• The role of Higher Education Institutions in improving early warning systems for global health risks in case of a novel pandemic
• Advancing green campus initiatives through a decolonial approach
• Closing the gap between academia and policy: Enhancing Higher Education Institutes’ engagement for Public Health and the SDGs
• The contribution of Higher Education Institutions to decent work and economic growth
• Engaging global communities: The role of Higher Education Institutions in combating antibiotic resistance for a healthier future
• Environmental education in Higher Education Institutions
• Higher education’s role in reducing the burden of non-communicable diseases by promoting health literacy in low and middle-income countries
• Higher education institutions as change agents in climate action for people with disabilities
• Enhancing research funding efficiency and equity in higher health education institutions

• Rethinking higher education in light of climate action (SDG13): Harnessing traditional knowledge to mitigate and adapt the impact of climate change

   

In 2023, we collaborated with SOS Children’s Villages. The challenge was to develop policy briefs on questions related to child protection and welfare, like how to deal with the right of children and parents to reunification and contact, and services for unaccompanied refugee youth.

The nine policy briefs:

• Reunification & child protection rights
• A child’s rights to a family right
• Voice but no choice
• No child should be left behind
• Family reunification is the right of every child
• The quest for identity
• Where do we belong
• Towards a more equitable Norway

• Right of children and parents for reunification and contact

   

In 2022, we partnered with UNICEF to look at inclusive policies that empower individuals to reach their full potential—starting with the fulfilment of basic needs.

Participants were invited to develop policy recommendations aimed at diverse stakeholders, including individual citizens, institutional leaders, national policymakers, and private sector executives. The goal was to create frameworks that:

• Address multiple dimensions of wellbeing—individual, family, society, and planet
• Enable gradual implementation by international organizations such as UNICEF
• Recognise that individual wellbeing is both a driver and a result of collective wellbeing

The policy briefs:

• A holistic approach to child welfare in addressing the root causes of child labour
• Ensuring children’s wellbeing: A special focus on the poverty issue of Rohingya refugee community in Bangladesh
• Influencing inequality through immunisation
• Target female access to education to reduce childhood poverty
• Equitable access to quality education in Nairobi, Kenya
• Policy recommendations addressing child poverty in Indonesia with a focus on education
• Tackling the burden of malnutrition arising from child poverty in LMICs. A holistic approach
• Increasing immunisation in the Sub-Saharan countries
• Poverty, children and the use of information and communications technology

• Reducing child poverty through child education

   

We partnered with SDG Bergen to focus on the SDG Bergen Policy Brief series. The participants were challenged to develop their own policy briefs centred on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) nexuses—highlighting the interconnections between specific targets and goals, with the aim of enhancing positive synergies and reducing trade-offs.

Participants were asked to:

• Select specific SDG targets or indicators and provide policy recommendations based on their own or others’ research
• Apply the principle of “local experience – global relevance” to ensure their briefs would resonate with policymakers across contexts

The policy briefs:

• We need to discuss degrowth
• Educating the public on sustainable fish consumption
• Community access to renewable energy
• Leveling the playing field for women in STEM
• Climate displacement education
• Marine plastic pollution
• Women in small-scale fisheries
• Sustainability vs Starvation
• Deep sea mining
• Sustainable fisheries
• Equal access to quality education
• Fishers’ climate knowledge
• Water scarcity and gender
• Transport systems for gender equality
• Poverty and equality during the pandemic
• Food and nutrition education
• Subsidies and fishing

Of these, three were turned into SDG Bergen Policy Briefs:

• Transdisciplinary partnerships are needed to obtain sustainable fisheries across the globe
• Regulating deep sea mining for sustainable development 

• Sustaining the invisible contributions of women in small-scale fisheries