Funding community resilience in a polycrisis: exploring a Human Learning Systems (+)-based approach

The complexity of global challenges often described as a polycrisis demands a fundamental rethinking of how communities build resilience. A polycrisis refers to the interconnected and compounding nature of multiple crises, such as climate change, economic instability and social inequality, creating challenges exceeding the sum of their parts. As these crises intensify, traditional funding mechanisms, rooted in risk aversion and rigid outcome-based models, struggle to deliver meaningful, sustainable change at the community level. Salonen et al.’s definition of social pedagogy acknowledges the complexity of modern society and sees the role of social pedagogy as an effort to reconcile individual autonomy with the demands of society. This encourages a deeper understanding of the relationship between the individual, society and Earth by uniting three principal dimensions of a social-ecological worldview from a spatial, temporal and ethical perspective. The article explores how the addition of these considerations into a human learning system funding model, defined as Human Learning Systems (+), supports a more holistic model that recognises and facilitates adaptive learning cycles over the life cycle of a project. The article references work in designing and delivering a human learning systems-based funding model in the Scottish Borders. It also explores the role of trust-based relationships and adaptive learning within a culture/systems-based framework. Current methodologies that attempt to quantify funding outcomes meaningfully are in need of re-evaluation. Learning behaviours that enable communities and organisations to effectively navigate complex adaptive systems may be a key step towards building resilience in a polycrisis.