SDApublish

RSD proceedings have often been further developed as peer-reviewed articles with special issues in design journals FORMakademisk, She Ji, and several edited volumes and collections. In the spirit of the RSD Publishing Ladder that was encouraged over our first decade, the SDA continues with a cyclic, non-hierarchical approach to advance scholarship, which we call the Scholars Spiral. The Spiral is meant to indicate the continuous process of development of research and its mobilization, represented by a spiral that expands outward rather than the conventional “upward” ladder metaphor. However the spiral should be seen as a way for scholars to also start anywhere with their work, to expand or to pause publishing according to interest and collaboration.

1-RSD symposium abstracts
2-Presentation and dialogue at RSD Symposium
3-RSD proceedings paper
4-Development for other conferences
5-Refereed publication of work in progress: case brief or relevant journal
6-Refereed publication of research in Contexts – The Systemic Design Journal

Publications

systemic design

noun / si-ˈste-mik di-ˈzīn /

: an interdiscipline that joins systems thinking to design methodology

Community

Theory

Practice

Publishing

SDAJournal

Contexts is an open-access, peer-reviewed research journal published by the Systemic Design Association. It is the first journal dedicated to scholarly reporting and research studies in the interdisciplinary field of systemic design. The journal welcomes novel submissions in systemic design, design for social complexity, system innovation, design methods, and systems-oriented design theory. Contexts is now accepting submissions for Volume 4.

CONTEXTS JOURNAL

Peter Hayward Jones’ editorial, Contexts of Design Research, Clarifying Complexity, describes the emerging voices, complex challenges, and inventive approaches evident in the second volume.

RSDSYMPOSIUM

Each year, the Relating Systems Thinking and Design (RSD) symposium acts as a capstone event in the systemic design community. All peer-reviewed papers, talks, workshop briefs, maps, and other exhibits are continuously updated on RSDsymposium.org, a repository of over 1500 articles. RSD supports an international knowledge-sharing network of systemic designers who adapt systems thinking methods and creatively push the boundaries beyond the popular modes of systems dynamics and soft systems.

RSD15 OCT 2026

SDACOMMUNITY

The Systemic Design Association convenes and promotes a wide range of designers and scholars leading emerging practices, design-led systems research, and advanced design methods that are gaining attention in academic circles and design fields. The basic infrastructure needed to keep the systemic design community networked and visible comes from SDA membership fees and is supported by an international cohort of engaged volunteers and partners.

SDA MEMBERSHIP

Seanna Davidson, Co-Founder & Director, The Systems School, facilitated the systems(ic) leadership retreat on October 19, 2025.

SDAPRACTICE

Systemic design has moved toward pragmatic practice. The annual RSD symposia aim to create opportunities for dialogue that help guide principles for systemic design practice. Systemic design consultancy Snowmelt is the RSD14 praxis partner and convenor of the first-ever Pacific Edition. This exceptional programme bridged the Pacific Ocean with sessions scheduled in time zones friendly to areas from the eastern Americas through to Australia and Southeast Asia.

SNOWMELT

SDATHEORY

The SDA was formed to convene educators, practitioners, and researchers to co-evolve an interdisciplinary field over the long term. The field emerging as systemic design has jumped ahead to engage societal issues now recognised as ever more important for designers to address, ranging from design for health and well-being, quality of life, socioeconomics, urbanization, policy design, and cultural development.

COURSES & DEGREES

Group discussion at the systems(ic) leadership retreat on October 19, 2025.

SDAauthors

SDA activities embrace scholarship as a cyclic, spiral process that supports a vital emergence of supportive opportunities for scholars. The spiral approach also encourages scholarships to take their own path, recognizing the development of the field takes shape through studies in adjacent field journals and through partner societies, with conferences and journals in design research, systems sciences, interdisciplinary studies, and relevant fields.

FOR AUTHORS

Peer reviewed: the SDA journal, Contexts, follows a continuous publishing model, while RSDsymposium.org publishes annual peer-reviewed proceedings.

RSD15symposium

RSD15: Pluriversal Design is hosted by Politecnico di Torino from October 13 to 16, 2026 in Turin, Italy. Designing within a plural world aims to explore the recognition and cultivation of multiple, coexisting ways of knowing and doing within systemic design. RSD15 is organised by Sys Lab, a research group at the Politecnico di Torino that has been exploring systemic design methods and tools for environmental, social, and economic sustainability.

ANNOUNCING RSD15

Politecnico di Torino includes Valentino Castle, which has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1997.