REDESIGN’s Allison and Livia reflect on their System Dynamics Society Summer School experience
Last month, REDESIGN PhD students Allison Sermarini (University of Bologna) and Livia Kastner (IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute) attended the 4th edition of the Summer School of the Italian Chapter of the System Dynamics Society in Piacenza, Italy.
Over five intensive days, participants explored how System Dynamics can help better understand and address complex sustainability challenges. Through a mix of lectures, hands-on modelling exercises, interactive games and group projects, the summer school introduced participants to tools such as causal loop diagrams and stock and flow diagrams, which help uncover how interconnected variables shape system behaviour over time.
“The diversity of disciplinary backgrounds among the participants made the group exercises particularly interesting. It highlighted how System Dynamics can help uncover the complex interconnections that drive, or perhaps solve, some of the challenges we work with in REDESIGN.”
This year’s programme focused on agrifood systems, making it especially relevant for the REDESIGN project. Food systems involve multiple actors, competing priorities and multidimensional feedback effects that are often difficult to capture in their complexity. System Dynamics offers a way to explore these interactions and better understand how changes in one part of the system can influence outcomes elsewhere.
An important part of the training was learning how to move from qualitative discussions to quantitative models. Participants worked together to identify important variables in a system and then model them into structures that can be simulated and tested. One fascinating insight was how even a seemingly simple relationship in a causal loop diagram can represent a much more complex set of processes when modelled in detail.
The experience is particularly valuable for one of the subtasks in REDESIGN, which investigates the sustainability implications of upscaling urban food system initiatives. Beyond supporting sustainability assessment, the methods can also facilitate dialogue among stakeholders and project partners, helping to explore potential opportunities, unintended consequences and leverage points for change.
“When people with different expertise come together, new perspectives emerge. System Dynamics provides a way to capture those perspectives and turn them into a shared understanding of complex problems.”
By bringing these new skills and insights back into the project, Allison and Livia hope to strengthen REDESIGN’s ability to explore pathways towards more sustainable and resilient urban food systems.
