Seedling Series: Social Movement Ecology

We tend to approach change one organisation, project, or intervention at a time. Yet significant social change is never produced by a single actor. It emerges from the interaction of many organisations, campaigns, and communities working within and across multiple issues, often without ever coordinating directly.

When this field is healthy, small efforts compound into real power. When it is fragmented, even brilliant individual work snaps back to the status quo. In a political moment defined by polarisation and the deliberate stoking of division, this fragmentation is both inefficient and dangerous.

Movement ecology starts where you are: in the specific place and field of organisations you are already part of. It is a way of seeing that field as a single complex adaptive system, with its own feedback loops, stable states it keeps returning to, and resistance to top-down control. Drawing on complexity science, political theory, and the practical experience of the Movement Ecology Collective, this session explores why systems snap back, what separates a healthy ecology from a merely busy one, and how a diversity of strategies can add up to collective power rather than noise.

You will then apply the lens directly to your own context, locating your work within its wider ecology, identifying where your efforts can make the most difference and improve the health of your ecology.

Whether you work on a place-based project, inside a campaign, organisation, or support others to create change as a facilitator, consultant, or funder, you will leave with a sharper picture of the field you operate in and a clearer sense of where the highest-leverage work actually sits.

This short course is offered in collaboration between the Movement Ecology Collective and School of System Change as part of the Seedling Series: short courses supporting changemakers to embrace complexity through discovering the diversity of systemic approaches and practitioners.

Is this course for me?

Seedling Series courses are for changemakers who want to learn to embrace complexity through discovering the diversity of systemic approaches and practitioners that exist in the field.

This short course is for you if you want to learn:

• Why systemic change depends on movement-level dynamics in a place or sector rather than the strategy of any single organisation
• How to recognise the features of a healthy ecology: functional differentiation, non-competitive collaboration, and collective positional intelligence
• How to identify the dynamics that keep the current system in place by absorbing and neutralising the alternatives and how to counteract this 
• Common pitfalls in handling strategic disagreement, and what genuine strategic pluralism looks like
• How to locate your own work within a wider ecology, and find the points where strengthening relationships across difference would make the biggest difference

To maximise your learning, spaces on this cohort are limited. We encourage you to enrol as soon as you can to secure your place.

This course will run on Wednesday 8 July 2026 for 2 hours starting at 09:00 ET / 14:00 BST / 15:00 CEST / 18:30 IST.

You can join from anywhere in the world, so long as you can attend the times listed above.

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The School of System Change is continually working to improve the financial accessibility of our courses. For this course we offer three rates, and ask that you select the one that fits your financial situation. It is our hope that those able to afford the higher fees help us cover costs and support others to access the discounted rates.

Contribution Ticket: Regenerative - £55 GBP

Contribution Ticket: Supporter - £40 GBP

Contribution Ticket: Supported - £25 GBP

VAT does not apply.

Refund policy: Tickets are non-refundable but can be transferred to another participant.

We seek to create safe and brave spaces for participants from different backgrounds and lived experience to engage in learning together. We acknowledge the power and responsibility we hold in our role as a convenor and learning provider, placing multiple ways of knowing and awareness of difference as fundamental design principles in our programmes.

Read more about our commitment and journey around equity and difference.

Accessibility

If you will need additional support for your wellbeing or access needs, then please let us know as soon as possible, so we can factor this into our session design. You can let us know when you enrol or email us at [email protected] - we are happy to arrange a call to discuss how we can support your learning.

Enrolment is first come, first served until we reach our maximum cohort size, so we encourage you to enrol as soon as you can. Enrolment closes on Tuesday 7 July 2026 at 23:59 BST.

If the short course is full before the enrolment deadline, we will start a waiting list of those interested.

Refund policy: Tickets are non-refundable but can be transferred to another participant.

Any questions? Please get in touch with the School team at [email protected].

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