Reimagining Systems Thinking as Cybersystemic Researching
The article by Ison et al. (2025) proposes reimagining systems thinking as "cybersystemic researching," inviting a co-inquiry approach that integrates cybernetic and systemic perspectives to address complex, dynamic challenges.
Background
This is a niche academic paper in the field of systems thinking and cybernetics — overlapping disciplines that study how systems (biological, social, technological) self-regulate, adapt, and maintain order. "Cybersystemic" blends cybernetics (the science of control/communication in systems, popularized by Norbert Wiener) with systems thinking. The authors (Ison et al.) are scholars in this space, likely from the Open University UK or similar institutions. The piece is an "invitation to a co-inquiry," meaning it's a call for collaborative research, not a finished finding. For a general reader: this is a theoretical proposal to update old-school systems thinking by incorporating ideas from second-order cybernetics (which includes the observer in the system) and modern complexity science. Unless you work in organizational theory, sustainability, or design research, this is extremely abstract and jargon-heavy — the key takeaway is that some academics believe mainstream "systems thinking" has become stale and needs to reconnect with its cybernetic roots to handle messy real-world problems.