IFIS Academy (under construction)

Where knowing becomes practice. 

Where theory meets the lived experience of embodied learning and transformation for building capacity and life-long learning

Learning that changes how you live

The Institute for Integral Studies (IFIS) has spent over a decade bringing together researchers, practitioners, and changemakers to explore one central question: how do we navigate a world of growing complexity — not just intellectually, but as whole human beings?

The IFIS Academy is where this work becomes learnable. We translate rigorous integral thinking, developmental science, and embodied learning into programs you can actually feel — not just understand. Our conviction is that the gap between what we know and how we live is one of the defining challenges of our time. Filling that gap is not a matter of more information. It requires a different kind of learning.

Our programs draw on years of research and applied work — including IFIS's partnership in several EU-funded projects around "Leadership for Transition" - LIFT 2.0, LIFT 3.0 Politics and the recent Cohere+ project, which produced a System Changers Map and freely available mini-courses on coherence in the Cohere Learning Portal

We combine the depth of integral theory, the science of adult development, and the grounded reality of embodied practice — in formats designed to meet you where you are, and support you to grow from there

WHAT THE ACADEMY IS
  • A space for experiential, developmental learning grounded in integral thinking
  • A community of co-learners — not a classroom of students
  • Accessible online, with growing hybrid and in-person offers
  • A bridge between rigorous theory and lived transformation
  • Open to practitioners at all stages of their journey
WHAT THE ACADEMY IS NOT 
  • Not a conventional training provider with certificates and competence checklists
  • Not a purely academic lecture series
  • Not a wellness retreat or mindfulness programme
  • Not a place where you learn about transformation — rather, you are invited to experience it
  • Not a one-size-fits-all curriculum
THE DESIGN PRINCIPLES

Every IFIS Academy program is built around three non-negotiable principles:

01  — Undeniable experience first

We create moments so impactful that participants cannot deny their value. Transformation happens through experience — frameworks and concepts come second.

02  — Developmental Pathways

Programs inform, enrich and support each other to enhance the prospects for learning, agency and growth – for individual and collective systems.

03  — Co-creation

Participants help shape their own learning. Facilitators hold space — they do not impose solutions. You are invited as an explorer, not enrolled as a student.

Our Offers

The Academy organises its programs across multiple streams— designed as a developmental pathway within an co-arising field of emergence. You can enter at any level and see where the journey leads. Yet programs also build on each other: from first exploration to deep personal transformation, and from individual capacity to organisational and network-level and systemic change. In this we envision a future of expanding communities of practice

ENTRY & EXPLORATION

Free & Low-Threshold

PERSONAL PRACTICE

Individual Development

DEEP TRANSFORMATION

Intensive Programs

ORGANISATIONS & NETWORKS

Collective Capacity Building

  • Applied Research – Studies, Practice - Publications, Keynotes
  • Convening Spaces for open inquiry & exploration for what is emerging in complexity in larger fields 
  • Communities of Coherence and how they could respond to the demands of a rapidly changing world
  • School for Integral Politics: Principles of Integral Politics - Introduction to Theory U - Applied Deep Democracy - Dialogs on difficult topics - Roundtables for Community Development
  • Applying Body-Mindedness for Teams & Organisations
  • etc

PARTNER OFFERS  

Collaborating with

All upcoming events can also be found in the section "Activities/Events" of this website