Certification

Future Worlds Center, in collaboration with the Institute for 21st Century Agoras, is currently the only body that offers certification for Structured Dialogic Design Facilitators.

The SDD Certification Scheme is explained in detail in FWC’s website:
https://futureworlds.eu/wiki/SDD_Certification_Scheme

The following Levels of Certification are available:

  1. Candidate SDD co-Facilitator
  2. Certified SDD co-Facilitator
  3. Certified SDD Facilitator
  4. Certified Senior SDD Facilitator
  5. Certified SDD Trainer of Facilitators
  6. SDD Senior International Expert

Certification process

The requirements of the scheme depend on the role for which one wishes to become certified. They include:

  1. Having a Mentor (or Mentors) throughout the process; For advanced roles a candidate must have served as a Mentor;
  2. Master the theory in SDD Readings and passed the SDD Theoretical Examination;
  3. Accumulating training credit units as described in the SDD Credit Point System recognized by the SDD Certification Body; Advanced roles require advanced training and/or serving as a Trainer;
  4. Taking part in a number of simulations of Co-Laboratories to internalise the principles of SDD;
  5. Taking part as participant in a minimum number of full scale SDDPs;
  6. Completing the theoretical background training as certified by an SDD Theoretical Examination;
  7. Having organized and facilitated or co-facilitated a defined number of SDDPs;
  8. Having acted as Broker for a defined number of SDDPs;
  9. Having served as member of a Knowledge Management Team for a defined number of SDDPs;
  10. Having received the Cogniscope training from an authorised agent or an SDD Facilitators Training School;
  11. Having obtained a license to use the Cogniscope Software;
  12. Having prepared a defined number of SDDP reports, which have been submitted to the SDD Certification Body for comments and approval;
  13. Having prepared a defined number of scientific publications, which have been submitted to peered reviewed journals;
  14. Having being registered for an apprenticeship for a period of at least one year under the mentoring of a Certified SDD Facilitator;
  15. Paying a fee. 

Past credit-awarding courses

Online University Credit Course on Democracy & Global Sustainability

March 2011

In 2010 and 2011, Dr. Kenneth Bausch (Institute for 21st Century Agoras) and Professor Janet McIntyre (Flinders University) led a pioneering global online course that revisited The Predicament of Mankind using modern systems-thinking tools.

Students from Australia and the U.S. earned university credit through Flinders University.

The four-week program introduced participants to a Structured Dialogic Design process and engaged them in mapping today’s global problématique using the original 49 Continuous Critical Problems identified by Ozbekhan, Christakis, and Jantsch for the Club of Rome (1970). Students researched and clarified the CCPs, collaborated through a shared wiki, and joined facilitated online sessions to analyze influence relationships among the problems.

The course produced a new influence map, revealing how issues such as distorted information, obsolete political structures, and evolving value systems shape today’s global challenges. Comparing the 2010 results to a similar expert study from 1995 showed how shifts in information flows and politics have dramatically altered the structure of global problems.

This innovative online class demonstrated the power of participatory systems thinking, problem-based learning, and interdisciplinary collaboration for understanding and acting on complex sustainability challenges.