Driving change: the DT learning programme

The DT Lab is a strategic space for reflexive learning: its unique position at the intersection between the investment industry and academic research enables it to foster and disseminate learnings from experiments, unite diverse actors, and create distinctive learning environments. We’ll target both first order learning (new knowledge derived from experimentation) and second order learning (assumptions and problem definitions; beliefs, behaviours and values) to engender change not only in knowledge and action, but in the rules underpinning current, unsustainable systems*.‍

“Facilitating learning across different actors in a system, and supporting opportunities for second order learning, are important transformative outcomes. According to the DT Lab theory of change, these steps can help us to build collective problem-solving capacity and open up new ways of working together. The most exciting aspect of the DT Lab learning agenda is the online platform, which will allow us to translate the latest academic research into actionable knowledge and create new tools and practices for implementing and scaling Transformative Investment.” – Vicky Shaw, Learning and Knowledge Management Lead. 

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The four pillars of the learning programme

Through the four pillars, the learning programme will:

• Underpin the implementation of DT theory and Transformative Investment 
• Generate new knowledge from experimentation
• Develop resources, tools, competencies and mindsets
• Facilitate the transfer of co-created knowledge across public and private investment organisations 
• Nurture the next generation of investors with a student programme 
• Foster and support learning within the lab’s partner organisations 

​​Online learning hub 

An online learning hub will provide a platform for sharing resources, tools, case studies, frameworks and training materials. It will share implementation of DT thinking to stretch the transformative potential of investment portfolios, supporting and fostering mutual learning across lab partners. It will also provide an entry point for newcomers unfamiliar with the lab, who will be guided through thinking, frameworks and application of Transformative Investment. 

The platform is designed to be dynamic and scalable. It will be practice-oriented, expandable and inclusive, with a focus on self-facilitation to support standardisation and broader uptake in the industry and beyond. It will help visitors understand the dynamics of change in sociotechnical systems; differentiate between system optimisation, partial redesign and system change; construct pathways towards desirable futures; and put the Transformative Investment principles into practice. 

Open Learning Series 

 Building on an established online space developed by the DT Lab’s sister programme (the Transformative Innovation Policy Consortium TIPC), the Open Learning Series helps people working on transformative approaches globally to refresh their knowledge, connect and learn from one another. Aiming to shift narratives and practises towards a focus on transformation and the SDGs. The DT Lab will utilise this series to build a wider narrative around Transformative Investment, both in the public and private sector, and to nurture and mobilise knowledge communities. It will provide networking opportunities and foster exchange between impact and ESG investors, national and regional governments, development funders, research networks, knowledge hubs, and intergovernmental organisations.

The DT Lab and TIPC will also host conferences for the broader community of systemic investors; research/innovation funders; science, technology and innovation (STI) policy makers; and researchers. These forums will synchronise emerging work on systems transformation and identify novel strategies, methodologies and areas for cooperation, while exploring practical models and replicable actions for integrating system change into investment practices and policy-making. Learn more about this year’s conference in Barcelona: ‘Scaling experimentation: A catalyst for transformative system change’. 

Engaging students 

We’ll help develop the next generation of investors through community-engaged learning for students. A key objective is to engage students with the Deep Transitions Lab through interaction with Bachelor, Master or PhD programmes, as well as professionals, participating in virtual classrooms or on-location sessions at the university. We’ll build on partnerships with research hubs from around the world to ensure reciprocal knowledge transfer between the Global North and Global South. The programme will explore the embedding of DT thinking and learning in a variety of ways, which could include facilitation in summer schools, education for professionals, guest lectures on existing courses, conference days, utilising PhD networks, or links to degree programmes or projects.

Lab partner learning 

We’ll provide learning exchange opportunities for lab partners as part of the general experimentation programme, as well as personalised learning journeys and workshops based on specific partner needs. 

How we foster an inclusive and nurturing learning environment 

It’s essential that we foster a learning environment that is inclusive, accessible and responsive to individual and organisational learning aims to drive transformational change. Our programme targets a range of actors from across the globe, learning with a range of voices from students and policy makers to investors and researchers. It’s important we include a broad variety of participants as learning involves the whole person, and individual values and lived experience play critical roles in understanding and delivering transformative change. We aim to create spaces and the conditions for peer-to-peer exchange from informal gatherings at our conferences to more structured exercises in our learning series, workshops or conference talks. This is an experimental process, which we will adjust as we develop the programme using feedback from participants.  

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*Rule definition: A humanly devised constraint and enabler that structures human action leading to a regular pattern of practice, present in a single socio-technical system. Example: ‘Design cars for a nuclear family’ is a mobility system rule.

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By Vicky Shaw and Natalie Laurence

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