The challenges facing contemporary societies – from climate change and biodiversity loss to food insecurity and rising inequality – are deeply interconnected and cannot be resolved through business as usual. They require transformation, including a fundamental change in the identity, purpose, and function of a system rather than marginal improvement.

Yet most organisations, institutions, and partnerships are simply not set up to support change of this kind, particularly at the scale and over the timeframes that transformation demands.

This guide addresses that gap. It draws on five years of action research supporting food system transformation across Yorkshire and is complemented by insights from initiatives in health, higher education, and physical activity.

The guide offers a practical, integrated approach to cohering transformation at scale. It is written for facilitators, conveners, and leaders seeking to bring diverse actors together in support of systemic change.

The guide is organised around seven interconnected foundations:

• Understanding what transformation actually means and scoping it clearly;

• Building a shared strategic framework for action using approaches like Three Horizons;

• Enrolling and aligning diverse actors through a middle-out approach rather than relying on top-down or bottom-up change alone;

• Identifying and cohering the catalysts already present in the system rather than generating new initiatives;

• Designing governance explicitly for transformation;

• Embedding evaluation as a driver of learning and momentum rather than compliance;

• Sustaining the conditions needed to resist the gravitational pull back to existing patterns. 

Together these foundations are distilled into ten essentials that serve as a practical reference point. The foundations provided in this guide will help you apply your own efforts to navigate the complexities of supporting transformational change.