WHEN COMPLEXITY SCIENCE MEETS CONVERGENCE RESEARCH PART 7

Complexity Science and Convergence Research: A Match Made in Heaven?

Reflections from co-hosting the NSF workshop

My recent experience organizing and participating in NSF Convergence Accelerator future topic selection workshops gave me great food for thought. Combining my experience as the developmental evaluator for the NSF-GCR circular economy project, I cannot help but think that complexity science and convergence research are a match made in heaven. As a complexity leadership scholar and practitioner, I am interested in applying principles and practices of complexity in accelerating convergence research. Below are my initial musings.

Overview

A convergence accelerator team, consisting of diverse disciplines and stakeholders, works to converge upon breakthrough solutions for society’s complex challenges. Convergence can be challenging to achieve, given the current cultural and institutional roadblocks that have created disciplinary and stakeholder-based siloed structures. The volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) nature of the challenges convergence accelerator teams seek to address calls for innovative educational efforts. Principles from complexity science, such as ecosystem consciousness, multidimensionality and emergence, could be applied to enhance the educational effort for current stakeholders and future generations. Three types of…