Strategic Metacrisis Mapping Initiative

Executive Summary This initiative will deploy a sophisticated, integrated, and comprehensive philosophy to show what is possible when we leverage Big Pictures to support new forms of sensemaking and meta-strategizing about complex, wicked problems. There is an emerging consensus of a profound, global "metacrisis" characterized by entangled, interpenetrating, and co-arising global challenges.

byJosh Leonard

Sensemaking, Action, and Leadership Training (SALT) for Climate

SALT for Climate addresses a critical blindspot in climate action by focusing on conscious sensemaking as the foundation for effective climate initiatives. Combining climate research, human interior facilitation, and metatheories, it aims to heal psychosocial blindspots in current paradigms. SALT bridges the gap between climate policies and public perception, reducing polarization and stalled efforts. By providing specialized sensemaking and leadership training, it enhances climate leaders' capacities across emotional, social, and consciousness domains. This scalable approach complements scientific aspects, fosters public engagement, and aims to drive more effective, integrative climate leadership.

byJosh Leonard

The Cultural Complexity Index

The Cultural Complexity Index (CCI) initiative aims to quantify and analyze human cultural complexification across history. By applying advanced hierarchical complexity scoring to diverse cultural artifacts, the CCI will provide the first comprehensive dataset on cultural evolution. This project seeks to move cultural complexification theories from speculative sociology to empirical science, challenging relativistic academic paradigms and fostering more integrative approaches to today's complex global challenges. Through academic publications and public engagement, the CCI aims to catalyze a paradigm shift in understanding cultural evolution, offering crucial insights for addressing the intricate problems of our time.

byJosh Leonard

The Integral Social Sector Initiative

The Integral Social Sector Initiative is designed to draw together leaders in the integral and social impact fields to explore how integral metatheory might help social impact organizations develop more comprehensive and robust theories of change in their work addressing wicked 21st-century social and environmental challenges.

byRobb Smith

Encyclopedia of Big Pictures

Taking the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy as inspiration, the Encyclopedia of Big Pictures will be a free online resource that defines the relevant terms and concepts for the growing body of philosophical work underlying integrative metatheories.

byRobb Smith

Integrative Policing Transformation Initiative (Phase 1)

An Integrative Model of Policing Transformation is an Initiative designed to map the fuller complexity of policing in the United States and examine how a transformation toward a fuller guardian model of policing might be achieved.

byRobb Smith

The Ethics & Science of Metatheories

IAM investigates the proper role and application of metatheories, especially the ethics and empirics of their relationship to underlying theories. When do metatheories start to act like theories, and are there limits to the range of applications they can be properly used for in the Institute's work?

byRobb Smith