SysPrac25 - 3/4 Sept 2025

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Latest news

Exciting news for #SysPrac25! 

We’ve confirmed 36 international speakers, 10 hands-on workshops, 2 interactive jam/panel sessions, and the 4 keynote speakers - Dr Mike Jackson, Alison Guthrie-Wrenn, Dr Ray Ison, and Patrick Hoverstadt. 

Workshop voting is closed, but early bird discounts have been extended through (and including) 15 July 2025. 

Highlights include sessions on Patterns of Strategy, the Viable System Model, System Dynamics, and more. 

Expect 32 practitioner talks, informal fireside chats with leading systems thinkers, and a cash prize for the best student/apprentice case study. 

Keynote Speakers Announced for SysPrac25!

We’re excited to confirm an outstanding keynote lineup for SysPrac25 – the must-attend conference for systems thinking practitioners!

Dr Mike Jackson, OBE

Emeritus Professor of Management Systems at 
Hull University Business School

Alison Guthrie-Wrenn

Deputy Director of HR – Organisation Capability Group 
at the Department of Business and Trade

Dr Ray Ison

Emeritus Professor of Systems at the Open University and 
President of the IFSR

Patrick Hoverstadt

Chair of SCiO and 
Director of Fractal Consulting Ltd

Together, they bring decades of deep systems thinking expertise across academia, policy, and real-world practice.

systems problems demand systems approaches

SysPrac25 - The Systems Thinking Practitioner Conference
3rd & 4th September 2025 in Milton Keynes

... brings together systems thinking practitioners, academics and learners from around the world and from a wide range of systems thinking disciplines. Participants will come together to share and learn practical new skills and about different approaches from one another.

We are a community of change agents, consultants, academics, some with long track records, some just starting out, but all with a thirst to learn and share.

It’s now commonplace for people in all sectors to talk about the world and their organisations becoming more complex. The recognition that systems approaches offer solutions to dealing with this complexity is increasingly understood, so the demand for systems practitioners has never been greater.

SysPrac25 is being run by SCiO, the professional body for systems practitioners, in partnership with the Open University’s Systems Thinking in Practice (STiP) group, and the International Federation for Systems Research (IFSR). It is hosted by the Open University’s STiP group – one of the longest standing and renowned academic systems groups in the world.

Join us as participant, contributor or sponsor

Who will benefit from attending SysPrac25?

  • Systems Practitioners – from every systems thinking discipline
  • Learners – whether going through formal courses like the Master’s level apprenticeship in the UK, or self-paced learning, there will be a wide range of workshops where you can pick up new skills from established practitioners
  • Experts – an opportunity to share your experiences with others
  • Systems Academics – as Reg Revans famously stated, “There is no learning without action and no action without learning.” At the heart of our discipline lies the continual effort to close the theory–practice loop. This conference offers a valuable opportunity to engage directly with practitioners and collaboratively strengthen that essential connection.
  • Problem owners – if you have a complex problem you’re struggling with, bring it to a problem clinic for some expert input.

Organising team: SCiO, and friends
Mike Jones, Patrick Hoverstadt, Jo Caughlin, Gavin Roberts, Lesley Rowan, Steve Hales, Simon McCormac, Martin Reynolds and Russ Lewis.