A structural and long-term transformation is taking place in the world. The decentralized communication platforms, the rapid expansion and use of artificial intelligence along with major environmental, demographic, social-political and economic shifts are impinging major changes in our societies. This situation demands empowering citizens to promote economic development, environmental protection, social justice, and political stability. In particular, youth must develop a capacity to think and act differently which requires a major transformation of current education systems.
Today’s education system is fragmented and has become very ineffective and inefficient. Redesigning the education system means overcoming disciplinary barriers, intellectual constraints of particular ideologies and promoting new ways of knowledge production and learning approaches, moving from a human-center rationalism towards a planetary-center awareness of the interconnectedness of all biophysical systems.
On the other hand, given the scale, significance and magnitude of the challenges arising in the Anthropocene, it seems necessary to invent and make radical changes to create transformative governance regimes able to manage global risks for the purpose of providing safety and viability of human life into the future. Institutional innovations that break the current structures and relationships within governance systems are needed. They must be accompanied by a recovery of human systemic sensibility and the embodiment of cyber-systemic thinking in daily practices. New governance systems not only need to be imagined but enacted, hence the urgency for systemic praxis.
Invited to this Special Issue of Cybernetics and Systems are contributions aiming to present theoretical and conceptual frameworks, methodologies and empirical cases (experiences) to transform current education systems and promote effective governance in the age of the Anthropocene
