Systems Practice: How to Act in a Climate Change World is a Reader that shows how to do systems thinking and to translate thinking into action (i.e praxis). The Open University has been teaching Systems for nearly forty years and although it has developed an effective approach to teaching students, there is still a major deficiency in the market about the doing of systems. This book aims to fill this gap and meet an important need by building the case for a systems praxiology. Praxiology is that branch of knowledge dealing with practical activity and human conduct.One of the main findings to emerge from the activities of the EPSRC-funded Systems Practice for Managing Complexity (SPMC) Network was the idea that systems practice is highly valued by those who do it and know about it but most use it as a silent practice. A consequence of this is that many people have not heard of it, they do not know how to talk about it and they also do not know what is involved in doing it, i.e there is little demand-pull despite the wide-spread and increasing recognition that there is a need for thinking and acting systemically. Systems Practice will be relevant to praxis under the rubrics of leadership, management complexity, joined-up thinking, and action, strategic risk management, corporate social responsibility and climate change adaptation.

Ray Ison, in 1994 aged 42, became only the third person to hold the Chair in Systems which was created at the Open University (UK) in 1972. Ray is an experienced researcher, teacher, author, facilitator and consultant with an established international reputation. His current research and scholarship elucidates, through empirical, theoretical and systemic-design research how social learning could be employed as an established international reputation. His current research and scholarship elucidates, through empirical, theoretical and systemic-design research how social learning could be employed as an alternative governance mechanism for managing in complex situations, particularly water catchments and other multiple stakeholder settings. Since August 2008 he has held a joint appointment at the Open University (UK) and within the Monash Sustainability Institute in Melbourne, Australia, where he is Professor, Systems for Sustainability.