Peter Jones

Dr. Peter Jones is an associate professor in the Faculty of Design at OCAD University (OCAD U), in Toronto, Canada, in the Master of Design graduate programs. He teaches systemic and service design and mixed methods research for healthcare, information services, policy, and governance. 

He is the founder of Redesign Network, a renowned innovation research consultancy with a focus on professional practices and policy platforms; co-founder and academic director of the Flourishing Enterprise Institute, a research group that develops and teaches systemic management innovations for sustainability governance, urban planning, and complex public policy; and co-founder and board member of the Systemic Design Association (SDA) and its RSD (Relating Systems Thinking and Design) Symposium, which have become leading research networks in design for complexity.

His design experience ranges from user experience and evaluation to complete online platforms for leading information providers in the commercial, government, non-profit, and academic sectors. He has also led society-driven initiatives to make a change through design. For example, he was co-founder and board member of Regenerate Toronto, where he created the “Drawdown” program (2019-2022) for community education and systemic action on climate change.

Peter Jones’ research provides the basis to advise organizations in systems leadership and transformational change. His research agenda is largely focused on the theory and application of systemic design in highly complex domains such as healthcare and public sector management.

He is a leading scholar in dialogic design and collaborative foresight for addressing complex future challenges. He is also known for his work in soft services design for communities and health; collaborative foresight for complex challenges; flourishing cultures and economies (eco-social, strongly sustainable); and organizational learning and innovation, among other areas.

Since 2008, Peter Jones has been granted funding for several projects about systemic design in healthcare, decision-making in municipal planning, and futures and foresight, mainly in Canada.

He has been a regular speaker at international scholarly and professional conferences and workshops about topics involving systemic change, design, system design and research methods focused on education, healthcare, and society, in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Norway, Canada, the United States, India, and China, to name some.

He is editor-in-chief of the new SDA journal Contexts: The Systemic Design Journal, widely published in this field. He is also a reviewer for She Ji, Systems, Form Akademisk, Organization and Environment, Information, and other journals.

Additionally, he is also the RSD Proceedings editor-in-chief, where he has organized regular special issue collections curated from the RSD Symposium series, and section editor for chapters submitted to the Systemic Design section of the Springer: Handbook of Systems Sciences.

Peter Jones has written four books about design and innovation, the most recent ones being Design Journeys through Complex Systems (BIS Publishers, 2022) and Design for Care: Innovating Healthcare Experience (Rosenfeld Media, 2013).

He is recognized for his contributions to systemic design, like the creation of new systemic methodologies such as the Systemic Design Toolkit, Systemic Theories of Change, and the Flourishing Business Canvas.

Peter Jones joined Tecnológico de Monterrey as Distinguished Professor in Systemic Design for the School of Architecture, Art and Design.

• Ph.D., lnterdisciplinary Studies, Design and lnnovation Management, Union lnstitute.
• M.A., Experimental Psychology, Human Factors, University of Dayton.
• B.A., Psychology, Wright State University.

• Jones, Peter & Arun Kumar, Pranay. (2023). Formative Interventions for Healthcare Sustainability: A Developmental Design Agenda. 10.1007/978-3-031-20168-4_11. 

• Jones, P.H. and Van Ael, K. (2022). Design Journeys through Complex Systems. Amsterdam: BIS Publishers.

• Jones, P. & Barbero, s. (2022). The multi-order complexity of transdisciplinary communication. Contexts, 1.

• Waddock, S., Waddell, S., Jones, P. H., & Kendrick, I. (2022). Convening Transformation Systems to Achieve System Transformation. Journal of Awareness-Based Systems Change, 2(1), 77-100.

• Murphy, R.J. & Jones, P. (2021). Towards systemic theories of change: High-leverage strategies for managing wicked problems. Design Management Journal, 16(1), 49-65.

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