Embodying what it means to be the living world.
Explore new ways of organising, thinking, and designing the systems that shape our modern world. Our work is guided by an understanding of the relationships between people and the nature, the regenerative processes that sustain life, and ecological awareness experienced in differnent shapes and forms.
We aim to inspire a shift in how leadership, policy, and community are imagined — towards futures that serve both people and planet.
Latest: Regenerative Toolguide for Facilitators
Drawing on insights from ecology, complexity and long-standing Indigenous wisdom, the guide offers 30 facilitation tools for workshops, teaching, strategy, evaluation, community processes and personal reflection. Tools range from simple framing exercises that open up regenerative thinking, to deeper methods for bioregional mapping, systemic planning and collective decision-making.
Latest Articles
Read short reflections on transformational change, regenerative systems, and ecocentric ways of being and doing. Each piece offers insights and inspiration to support your work and efforts to bring about a positive world.
About Our Initiative
Ecocentric Futures is a collective of research and practice dedicated to exploring how an ecocentric consciousness, deeper connections with nature, indigenous and ancestral knowledge systems, and future-oriented design can reshape the ways we live, learn, and lead.
Based at the University of York, we bring together researchers, practitioners, and community leaders who are working to reimagine human systems in alignment with the living world. We believe that transformation begins when we recognise our interdependence with the ecosystems around us and design our institutions, policies, and practices to reflect that relationship.
Our work is guided by the understanding that multiple ways of knowing — scientific, experiential, and cultural — offer essential insights for creating futures that are equitable, adaptive, and life-affirming. Through our research, tools, and storytelling, Ecocentric Futures seeks to support those leading change across sectors to cultivate regenerative systems and ecocentric ways of being.
Research Pillars
Organising for Transformation
Understand how systems work — and how the relationships, behaviours, and structures within them shape meaningful change. Explore ways to design, evaluate, and support transformation by working with the dynamics that exist between people, institutions, and the wider system.
Regenerative Futures
Explore what it means to think and act regeneratively, imagining futures where human systems restore and enrich the living world. Reconnect with nature’s patterns and consider how regeneration can guide decisions, design, and everyday practice.
Ecocentric Ways of Being and Doing
Open the door to ways of knowing that Western systems have overlooked, including indigenous, ancestral, and nature-rooted knowledge. Cultivate a deeper ecological awareness that expands how we understand transformation and our relationship with the world around us.