The polycrisis is here, and system dynamics can help: a call to action

What the paper says

The current state of the world is unquestionably precarious. The System Dynamics (SD) community has spent decades examining the complexity of global issues and responding to the ensuing risks—from the limits to growth (Herrington, 2021; Nature, 2022) and climate change (Rooney-Varga et al., 2021; Sterman, 2008) to the opioid crises (Jalali et al., 2020; Nataraj et al., 2024), poverty (Herrera de Leon & Kopainsky, 2019), and violent conflicts (Clancy et al., 2024). However, today's crises feel different. What has changed? The answer lies in the emergence of what scholars today call the polycrisis. At the core of the concept is the intuition that what may appear to be separate crises in different systems in fact interact and reshape one another in ways that compound their harms yet remain underappreciated in policy and analysis. Definitions vary (see Matlovič & Matlovičová, 2024), but virtually all of them adopt a systems perspective as the essential foundation of the concept. Polycrisis thinkers maintain that the polycrisis as a whole is both different, and generally worse, than the sum of its constituent crises, thus constituting an emergent phenomenon (e.g., World Economic Forum, 2023). They recognize the interactions between multiple causes working in complex patterns (such as feedback loops) to generate crises, while others continue to offer reductionist explanations (e.g., Tooze, 2022). And polycrisis thinkers emphasize nonlinear dynamics and unpredictability of the systems in which crises occur—properties that defy conventional risk analysis and traditional policymaking approaches (Davies & Hobson, 2023). One particular approach understands a crisis as the harmful disequilibrium that occurs when long-term stresses and more proximate trigger interact to push a system out of its established basin of attraction (Lawrence, Homer-Dixon, Janzwood, et al., 2024). The resonance of polycrisis thinking with the SD community's concerns is readily evident. To pursue these intersections would not just seize a promising opportunity, it is an urgent imperative that could help the world navigate the world's precarious and unprecedented condition (Homer-Dixon, 2023). To aid the collaboration, members of the polycrisis community set out a productive, practicable, and stimulating agenda for research and action in May 2024. Many of the priorities articulated in Polycrisis Research and Action Roadmap can and should be taken up by the SD community (the roadmap is co-authored by the Cascade Institute, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Action Research (PIK), the Research Institute for Sustainability/Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, and the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) at Cambridge University) (Lawrence, Shipman, et al., 2024). First, in terms of theoretical foundations, researchers and practitioners should be more explicit about their positions about the nature of the polycrisis, the level of crises' interactions sufficient to qualify as a polycrisis and the concepts of risk and crisis (SD has a deep-rooted epistemology based on operationalizing and making mental models explicit). Second, regarding empirical research, there is a compelling call to more clearly identify the systems under investigation and the boundaries of those systems, along with the mechanisms behind crisis spread and contagion (the tools and approaches within the SD community have largely debated the boundaries of models and diffusion mechanisms in several fields). Third, as for practical applications, policymakers and other frontline stakeholders are excluded from the polycrisis research process, often as the result of a “negativity bias” within the field that limits reach (SD has long been applied to understand and address wicked problems with a perceived strong “negative” bias and the SD community has developed many innovative group-based and participatory modeling processes). Fourth, in terms of community building, the development of a polycrisis field requires a unified identity that represents diverse perspectives and fosters cooperation, along with the organizational infrastructure to support communication and collaboration (the SD community sets an excellent benchmark with the System Dynamics Society and the System Dynamics Review). With those four dimensions in mind, we put forth a set of five key features of the overarching SD approach and academic community that makes it uniquely positioned to make significant contributions to the emerging field of polycrisis analysis. One approach to polycrisis analysis is the stress–trigger–crisis (STC) model, where slow-moving systemic stresses (e.g., climate change or socioeconomic inequality) interact with fast-moving trigger events (e.g., financial collapses or pandemics) to push global systems into disequilibrium (Lawrence, Shipman, & Homer-Dixon, 2024). What makes polycrisis particularly dangerous is the feedback loops between these stresses and trigger events. For instance, a pandemic might worsen socioeconomic inequality, which in turn undermines public health systems, creating conditions for future health crises. These feedback loops can be explained by modeling how crises in one system can intensify or trigger crises in others based on a fundamental “endogenous point of view”, which George Richardson calls the sine qua non of systems approaches (Richardson, 2011). SD can offer critical insights into how we might break dangerous loops of crisis amplification and develop more resilient systems. The unpredictability of polycrisis is one of its defining features, as the precise timing and location of trigger events are difficult to forecast. Within this context, SD offers tools to support scenario analysis, allowing us to simulate how different patterns of behavior might emerge. Inter-systemic feedback diagrams (Lawrence, Shipman, & Homer-Dixon, 2024), for example, depict how stressors in one domain, such as climate heating, can lead to cascading effects in other domains, such as pandemics and economic crises. The SD community can then further provide decision-makers with tools to anticipate and mitigate the potential impacts of future crises. This type of scenario analysis is essential for policymakers trying to navigate a world of profound uncertainty. Polycrisis analysis is inherently interdisciplinary, requiring insights from fields as diverse as environmental science, political economy, public health, and international relations. One of the strengths of SD is its ability to integrate knowledge from multiple domains into coherent models. SD can support the development of comprehensive models that capture the interactions between various systems in crisis. For example, the STC model emphasizes how systemic stresses slowly erode a system's equilibrium, while trigger events push the system into disequilibrium. As system dynamicists, we can play a vital role in refining these models, using our tools to better map out the complex causal pathways that define the polycrisis. A key challenge of polycrisis analysis is the sheer complexity of the interactions between crises. Policymakers, faced with a flood of data and (mis)information, often struggle to entirely grasp the full extent of the interconnections between crises in different systems. This is where SD can provide decision support tools, helping policymakers understand how interventions in one system might ripple through others, producing unintended consequences. The domino diagrams used to map the intersection between systemic risks in recent polycrisis analysis (see Lawrence, Shipman, & Homer-Dixon, 2024) offer a powerful metaphor, as they illustrate how a trigger event in one system (e.g., a spike in energy prices) can cause cascading failures across others (e.g., food shortages, economic instability). SD models can extend these metaphors, offering policymakers tangible simulations of how actions seemingly focusing on one area—such as implementing climate policies or regulating financial markets—can have wide-ranging impacts. We can make use of our long tradition of management flight simulators and serious games, such as the En-ROADS global climate simulator, to respond to these demands (Kapmeier et al., 2021). Finally, as polycrisis typically pushes systems into states of disequilibrium, the system's usual feedback mechanisms might break down or change nature, leading to unpredictable and potentially catastrophic outcomes. SD can help map out the possible transitions back to stability, identifying pathways that minimize harm. When systems are forced out of equilibrium, they may enter periods of volatility and disruption, frequently resulting in cascading harms. SD models can offer insights into how we might navigate these periods of disequilibrium, by identifying the leverage and intervention points that can either stabilize the system or push it into a new, more sustainable equilibrium. The polycrisis is here, and the SD community has the tools to make a difference. By embracing polycrisis analysis, we can extend our tradition of tackling the world's most pressing challenges and contribute to building a more resilient, just, and sustainable global system. It is time for system dynamicists to collaborate with experts across disciplines, to refine our models of complex crises, and to offer decision-makers the tools they need to navigate an uncertain and turbulent world. Together, we can help unravel the polycrisis. The authors have no organizations or individuals to acknowledge. Vinicius Picanço Rodrigues is an Assistant Professor at Insper Institute of Education and Research (Brazil) and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Strathclyde (UK). His applied research focuses on the environmental and social impacts of supply chains, which he views as complex yet critical and vulnerable systems for sustainable development. Vinicius holds a Ph.D. in Engineering from the Danmarks Tekniske Universitet (DTU) and a Graduate Certificate in Logistics and Supply Chain Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Michael Lawrence is a Fellow on the Polycrisis program team. He uses complexity science to understand the coevolution of conflict, violence, and social structure, and through this work, he has developed expertise on global governance, societal collapse, the psychology of dehumanization, transnational organized crime, and peacebuilding. Mike holds a Ph.D. in Global Governance from the University of Waterloo. Scott Janzwood leads the development and management of the Cascade Institute's research projects. His research focuses on how scientists and policymakers communicate uncertainty and collaborate to address global catastrophic risks, such as climate change, pandemics, and other emerging threats. Scott holds a Ph.D. in Global Governance from the University of Waterloo. No data were created or analyzed, so data sharing is not applicable.