Rewiring Collaboration for Systems Change
About the session
Most collaborations fall short of their potential.
They are slowed by fragmentation across actors, competition for funding and visibility, high coordination costs, and trust that relies too heavily on individual relationships rather than shared structures. If we are serious about systems change, we need to rethink not just what we do, but how we work together.
This session invites participants into a different approach to collaboration, developed by the Collaborative for Systemic Climate Action, a unique alliance of 27 implementing organisations spanning six continents, with 1,650 staff and over 400 years of collective experience, pooling resources and directing capital collectively toward a shared portfolio, with the ambition to drive systemic climate transformation at a scale none could reach alone.
Inspired by the logic of symbiosis in coral reefs, where organisms retain their independence while acting together as something greater, the Collaborative has developed SymbiOS, an operating system for inter-organisational collaboration organised around three interconnected dimensions:
Reef DNA│Solidarity: shared identity and mutual recognition across diverse organisations, sustained through relational practices rather than rules
Reef Skeleton│Governance: decision structures that distribute authority and enable the system to coordinate, hold integrity, and renew itself over time
Reef Metabolism│Portfolio-Learning: a shared portfolio whose composition determines both where resources flow and what the system can perceive and learn from — with that intelligence directly shaping what the Collaborative does next
Rather than presenting a finished model, this session opens up the thinking behind it and invites participants to engage directly with the ideas.
The format is a fishbowl dialogue. A small group explores key questions in the center while others listen and rotate in — designed for candor rather than performance.
Who this is for:
Leaders, funders, intermediaries, and practitioners working across organisations or sectors who are looking to strengthen collaboration and unlock more effective approaches to systems change.
What you will get out of it
A design logic for collaboration drawn from living systems and what that makes possible for systems change work
A candid account of four years of practice, what has been resolved and where the open questions remain
The opportunity to learn more about the Collaborative and explore how to support, join, or participate
This session is for those who are not just participating in collaboration, but actively trying to make it work better.
Location & access
Accessibility matters deeply to us, and we do our best to choose spaces that reflect that. That said, some of our Oxford venues are in historic buildings without lifts. This room is unfortunately not accessible for wheelchair users, those with mobility challenges, or anyone needing step-free access.