Understanding where our partners are today is the first step towards designing capacity building that responds to their real needs.
As SYNAPSE moves forward with its capacity-building activities, one question comes first: what do partner organisations already know about systems thinking, and where do they need additional support?
The SYNAPSE consortium brings together organisations with varied backgrounds and working environments across Europe and Africa. Because exposure to systems thinking varies across the partnership, the project could not assume that everyone was starting from the same point. Before developing the capacity-building curriculum and training materials, it was therefore essential to establish a clear picture of partners’ existing knowledge, practical experience and learning needs.
Why did SYNAPSE carry out the assessment?
As part of its state-of-the-art investigation, SYDIC (System Dynamics Italian Chapter) carried out a systems thinking assessment across its twelve partner organisations. The purpose was not to grade or rank partners, but to understand the consortium’s current capacity and identify the areas where training could add the most value.
The assessment combined a scored questionnaire with personalised written interviews, in which partners answered open-ended questions. The questionnaire explored knowledge of core systems thinking concepts, including systems, causality, feedback loops, system behaviours, archetypes and visual System Dynamics tools. The interviews then gave partners an opportunity to connect these concepts to challenges they face in their own organisations and communities.
This approach helped SYNAPSE look beyond scores and understand not only what partners know, but also how they currently apply systems thinking and how they would like to develop their skills.
What did we learn?
The findings provide an encouraging starting point. Partners demonstrated a strong understanding of the foundations of systems thinking, with an average questionnaire score of 79%. Basic understanding of systems was especially strong, alongside knowledge of causality and system behaviours.
At the same time, the assessment identified a common opportunity for further development: moving from an intuitive understanding of complex problems towards the practical and visual application of systems thinking tools. Areas such as feedback loops, causal loop diagrams, stocks and flows, system archetypes and leverage points emerged as key priorities for further learning.
The interviews added depth to these results. Partners were able to describe concrete situations in which interventions produced unexpected consequences or problems continued to reappear. Many partners are already encountering and responding to systemic challenges in their everyday work, even when they do not yet use the formal language or visual tools of systems thinking to analyse them.
This means the capacity-building process does not need to start from zero. Instead, it can help partners translate existing experience and intuition into practical systems thinking methods they can apply more deliberately and consistently.
How will the findings guide capacity building?
The findings provide an evidence base for designing the project’s capacity-building curriculum and training materials around partners’ actual needs. Rather than focusing heavily on theory, the training will place greater emphasis on applied and visual tools, including causal loop diagrams, reinforcing and balancing feedback, behaviour over time, stocks and flows, and leverage points.
Partners also expressed a clear preference for learning through case studies and hands-on activities. This means that systems thinking concepts can be introduced through situations that partners recognise from their own work, allowing them to practise using the tools on genuine challenges from their own work.
The assessment also underlines the need to make the capacity-building activities accessible to a diverse consortium. Training approaches will therefore take into account different educational backgrounds, organisational contexts, connectivity conditions and accessibility needs across participating countries.
Building capacity that travels further
The value of this assessment extends beyond the partner organisations themselves. It establishes the systems thinking foundation needed for the later stages of SYNAPSE. The knowledge and practical skills developed through capacity building will support partners as they prepare youth facilitators, who will in turn work with young people during the project’s virtual exchange activities.
Beyond its diagnostic role, the assessment gives SYNAPSE a starting point for action, helping to ensure that capacity building responds to demonstrated needs and equips partners with practical tools they can carry into their work with young people.
As a next step, SYDIC, together with the involved partners, will deliver online training to SYNAPSE partners between October and November 2026. The training will build on the needs and priorities identified through the assessment and strengthen partners’ practical application of systems thinking.