Author: David R Cole

Dom Fou | Unsplash

By Otto Scharmer, member of the Club of Rome, MIT Senior Lecturer and founding chair, Presencing Institute, and Michael Pirson, member of The Club of Rome and professor at Fordham University

25 February 2026 – What is the role of education in an age of rupture—and regeneration? AI disruption, ecological breakdown and social fragmentation are reshaping our world faster than our learning systems can respond. The crisis is not only educational. It is civilisational.

Across the past few years, through the Club of Rome, the Presencing Institute, and the OECD High Performing Systems for Tomorrow group, we have convened hundreds of educators, leaders, innovators and policymakers across regions to reimagine education in the age of AI—shifting the focus from performance and employability toward human and planetary flourishing.

Together, we have been exploring a core question: What kind of learning is needed now—and how do we make it real?

Out of these global dialogues and practice-based workshops, twelve emerging principles have surfaced. They point toward radical experimentation, reimagined institutions and learning by doing—toward universities and business schools as regenerative innovation ecosystems.

We are sharing this first draft as an open invitation and evolving platform: Let’s prototype the future—together. We need a movement for this now.

In a time defined by rupture and an accelerating erosion of social, ecological and spiritual foundations, the dominant models of leadership and education are increasingly becoming part of the problem. They reproduce short-termism, fragmentation and a mindset of separation, leaving many learners anxious, isolated and uncertain about the future. And yet, within the breakdown, new possibilities are also becoming visible. Across regions and sectors, educators and innovators are prototyping ways of learning, leading and organising that are more life-affirming, more connected and more resilient.

Over the past eight months, we have convened a global community of several hundred pioneering educators and leaders in higher education through three in-person workshops and six online gatherings, with colleagues from all regions of the world. Across all meetings, the intention remained consistent: to transform business schools from engines of an outdated logic—one that perpetuates environmental and societal destruction—into regenerative ecosystems that foster human and planetary flourishing. We explored how education might prepare students to make sense of, navigate and contribute wisely within a context of technological disruption, social and geopolitical turbulence, and deep cultural renewal.

The stakes are profound. Business schools graduate approximately 40 million students each year, yet many are still trained in frameworks that deepen the very divides—ecological, social and spiritual—that undermine our civilisational foundations across world regions. This initiative seeks to reimagine universities as hubs of societal innovation and regeneration: shifting from economistic paradigms toward human- and eco-centric paradigms that honor life, dignity and the commons.

We do not assume that transformation happens through a single lever. Rather, this work engages multiple “acupressure points” throughout the educational system—inviting the regenerative capacity of the whole to awaken. As the prevailing operating system begins to falter, our invitation is to refocus on our collaborative capacities: to co-sense, co-create and co-evolve a future that depends on human agency to come into being.

What follows are twelve principles we do not present as doctrine, but as living seeds—field-tested, emergent and offered to invite conversation, adaptation and co-evolution.

1. Universities as innovation ecosystems for human and planetary flourishing
Universities must reimagine themselves as dynamic innovation ecosystems that engage the living challenges of our time. Rather than remaining detached centers of knowledge accumulation, they become woven into the social, ecological and economic realities around them—spaces that cultivate regeneration and repair. This shift requires platforms for cross-generational, cross-sector collaboration in which students and faculty co-create with partners from civil society, government and business. It also requires governance and incentives that align the institution with the wider relational ecosystem: locally rooted, globally connected and oriented toward the common good.

2. Beyond employment: educate first-rate humans, not second-rate robots

The rise of AI forces a question that education can no longer postpone: Who are we as human beings — and who do we want to become? Are we merely biomechanical entities destined to merge with increasingly powerful machine intelligence, or is there more to human life — more depth in our ways of knowing, relating, discerning and becoming? These questions cannot be “answered” by universities on behalf of people. They can only be explored and lived into by each person. But universities should offer world-class environments for rigorous inquiry into the full range of human capacities — through epistemological broadening and ontological deepening.

The problem with our current system is, in the words of OECD’s Andreas Schleicher, that we “are in danger of educating second-class robots, not first-class humans.” Practically, this means moving beyond educating primarily for employability. It means creating learning environments for students, faculty, staff and ecosystem partners that develop the inner capacities required for wise action in complexity: attention, presence, sensemaking, dialogue, ethical discernment and the ability to co-create with others. These offerings are not optional add-ons layered onto an already overloaded curriculum. They become the beating heart of the university and leadership school of the future — integrating awareness practices, social-emotional intelligence and flourishing into the culture of learning itself, and revealing the tacit assumptions about human nature and the purpose of education so that genuine formation can occur.

3. Update the core curriculum: from extractive ego- to regenerative eco-economics
Much economic and managerial education still centers on an extractive logic: the world as resource, organisations as machines for growth, and value as something captured rather than created in relationship. This principle proposes a different lens: the economy as a living, interdependent system grounded in reciprocity, mutual care and planetary boundaries. It invites a shift from isolated, ego-centric models of action to interconnected, eco-centric ways of operating.

In practice, this means reworking core courses in business, finance, marketing, economics and strategy, so that regenerative frameworks become foundational rather than elective. Students learn not only how markets and organisations function, but also how they evolve, how they become brittle, how they can be redesigned, and where the beginnings of transformation are already visible—drawing on living examples, including Indigenous and place-based wisdom traditions and contemporary regenerative innovations.

4. Cultivate the social soil, not just the syllabus
The deepest leverage point in education is often the least visible. The impact of an institution is not only what it teaches, but how it teaches and operates—through the quality of relationships, the depth of attention, the coherence of purpose and the lived experience of belonging. We call these invisible enabling conditions the social soil. Like the farmer who tends the soil rather than merely optimising the seed, educators and leaders must cultivate the conditions that allow learning and life to flourish.

This requires new leadership capacities and practices of awareness, listening, dialogue, presencing, co-imagining, co-creating and co-governance—supported by real “practice fields” where these capacities are developed with rigor. It also requires making explicit the institution’s tacit assumptions about what counts as knowledge, what counts as a person and what education is ultimately for—so that deliberation, discernment and formation can become conscious and intentional.

5. Upgrade the operating system: strengthen vertical transformation literacy
With our devices, we either install new apps or upgrade the operating system. The first adds skills; the second expands what the whole system can do. In education, we have largely focused on apps—horizontal development, new competencies—while neglecting upgrades of the human operating system itself: vertical development, the evolving quality of attention, intention, thinking, relating and conversation. Meanwhile, the quality of attention and dialogue is deteriorating globally, accelerated by platforms that optimise for extractive engagement, i.e. profits, rather than regenerative presence and human wellbeing.

Vertical transformation literacy becomes increasingly essential as AI takes over routine tasks. The more automation advances, the more human value shifts toward the capacities that cannot be outsourced: sensemaking, ethical discernment, relational intelligence and the ability to perceive wholes rather than only parts. Gateways into this deeper learning include cultivating comfort with not-knowing, the ability to stay present with discomfort and practices of stillness that restore agency and presence. Education must also revisit the kernel assumptions of our shared operating system—our implicit stories about who we are and what a good life is—so that human development is not outsourced to algorithms or reduced to productivity.

6. Build ecosystems of deep action learning: societal challenges as a teacher
Rather than separating theory from practice, this principle treats real-world challenges as the raw material of learning. Students build their capacity by engaging directly with the frontiers of disruption, suffering and innovation—hands-on and unmediated—while developing inner capacities that enable wise action: curiosity (not-knowing), equanimity (staying with discomfort) and discernment (knowing when not to act). In these engagements, students and faculty often report something striking: they feel more alive, more connected and more engaged. Formation deepens when learning becomes consequential and relational.

In practice, this means designing curricula around immersive, challenge-based projects developed with local communities, enterprises and civic partners. Reflection, iteration and integration become core to the cycle. Students experience themselves not as observers of crisis, but as co-creative agents of renewal.

7. Take deep sensing journeys: nature as a teacher
The teacher with the longest track record in human evolution is also the most neglected in modern institutional learning: mother nature. Nature offers context, presence and living-system principles that can guide human development. Intentional stillness in natural settings remains one of the most powerful ways to widen and deepen consciousness and restore a sense of belonging within the web of life.

Educationally, this calls for an expanded ontology of humans as part of nature, not separate from it. It invites deep sensing and dialogue practices in natural environments—such as regular dialogue walks, solo time in nature, land-based reflection practices, ecological immersion and learning from Indigenous and place-based knowledge systems. Nature becomes not a theme, but a teacher.

8. Unlock the power of social arts: the social field as a teacher
As hopelessness, loneliness and a sense of insignificance spread, education must expand beyond purely cognitive learning into the full formation of persons. Social arts and embodied learning practices provide safe practice fields for new relational qualities of inquiry and experience. These practices make visible the “invisible dimension” of social systems—the social field, the social soil—and allow learners to sense and shape the relational conditions that determine what groups can do together.

Practices such as Social Presencing Theater, generative scribing, poetic mirroring and musical mirroring engage not only cognition but also aesthetic and ethical dimensions of learning. They help groups access shared meaning, restore aliveness and deepen the capacity for relational sensemaking in complex times.

9. Use presencing practices: connecting to the emerging future as friend and teacher
Presencing is deep sensing into an emerging future that “looks back” at us—a future potential that depends on our agency to manifest. This is not abstract futurism. It is a lived experience shared by creators and innovators who have brought genuinely new realities into being: a sense that the future is not predetermined, but invited; not guaranteed, but called forth.

Presencing practices enliven learning because they involve the whole person—mind, heart, body and relational capacity. They can include dialogue walks, solo time in nature, journaling, circle practices and embodied sensing modalities. Faculty guide students to connect to deeper sources of presence, passion and purpose, strengthening the inner authority required to act intentionally and wisely in turbulent times.

10. Breathing life into dying systems: University as a process of ecosystem breathing
Universities become dying systems to the degree that their activities are disconnected from the existential challenges of our time. They become living systems to the degree that they remain connected to, and help respond to, the polycrisis with courage and relevance.

We can understand the living university as a breathing process. “Breathing in” happens when students and faculty go out into the world to engage the frontlines of societal challenges and innovation. “Breathing out” happens when they return—often with partners—to make sense of what was learned, integrate new perspectives, and upgrade tools and practices. This implies redesigning semesters, workloads, workshops and governance so that cycles of immersion, action learning, retreat, reflection and integration become the rhythm of institutional life.

11. Build the missing middleware: distributed acupuncture points for renewal
Ecosystem breathing becomes possible only when coherence arises across multiple parts of the system. This principle focuses on the “middleware”: the relationships, roles and connective infrastructures that are often overlooked but essential for transformation. A critical leverage point is faculty and administrators who cultivate new skills for building coherence and tending social soil across boundaries—departmental, disciplinary, institutional and societal.

This includes creating communities of practice, developing bridging roles between departments and external partners, investing in connective infrastructure, and strengthening the relational pathways that connect isolated campuses with vibrant ecosystems of social innovation, including civil society organisations, startups and social enterprises. Transformation is not only a matter of ideas; it is a matter of relational architecture.

12. Create minimal enabling infrastructure: PRESENCE
The operating system described here is already emerging—shaped by changing student expectations, societal demands and networks of innovators across higher education. Scaling access to living university ecosystems does not require heavy structures or centralised control. Deep transformation often arises through minimal enabling infrastructures: just enough scaffolding to connect, convene, and sustain what wants to emerge.

PRESENCE—Planetary Regeneration through Education, Sensing, Embodiment and Networks of Conscious Enterprises—names such a meta-infrastructure. It is not a new institution layered onto the old, but a loosely coupled network of individuals and institutions committed to transforming education and business toward human and planetary flourishing. Its role is to provide conditions that allow diverse initiatives to recognise one another, share practices, align around purpose and remain locally rooted while globally connected.

In practice, this means cultivating light-touch platforms and generative holding spaces: shared sensing practices, steward circles, convening formats and open knowledge commons designed for coherence and emergence rather than scale through standardisation or control. By weaving together multiple islands of coherence, such minimal infrastructures can help larger fields of collaboration and mutual inspiration come into being—supporting collective action for regeneration without sacrificing depth, integrity or local agency.

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