Welcome!

The Schumacher Institute is an independent research group that is dedicated to the question: what makes our natural and social systems viable in the long-term?

It investigates problems in collaboration with those affected and provides many forums for this collaboration and engagement through seminars, workshops and direct global and local action.

The Institute was formed in 2004 by the Schumacher Society UK, which has run its world famous lectures for over 30 years. These have contributed greatly to raising awareness about the many critical environmental and social issues that we face.

E. F. Schumacher's work has influenced many others. A body of knowledge and understanding has grown up around the concepts of appropriate scale, local action, uniting differences, non-violence, simplicity and spiritual development. It is a unique philosophical expression of ideas drawn from alternative and radical views of how we should live on this planet.

The Institute is about thinking the future as 'complex systems where people matter'. The main methodology used at the Institute is critical systems thinking, an important tool for addressing problems characterised by complexity, large scale, uncertainty, impermanence, and imperfection. Many of the problems the world faces are complex with multi-party interests, a politically-charged history, diverse cultural contexts, and a range of relevant factors, with inter-relationships that are far from straight-forward. The problems are also often large in geographical, temporal, hierarchical and population scales. There tend to be many unknowns, substantively, in terms of relationships and in terms of successful interventions. The unknowns are compounded by constant change; change occurring on many fronts including biological evolution, scientific and technological developments, in economic drivers, in international relations and in manifold intended and unintended consequences of local, national and international policies and programs. Perfect knowledge and solutions are impossible. The value of critical systems thinking is that it combines systems thinking and participatory methods, and by its nature involves a range of disciplines and sectors combining, functional, interpretive, emancipatory and postmodern approaches.