About


Emerge is a network responding to the question of what is happening within, between and beyond human beings in a civilisation that appears to be dying. We connect pioneers, seekers, innovators and their initiatives. We highlight what we share and seek to make visible the patterns that connect us. We help each other to respond to the most urgent challenges of our time. Together, we will sow the seeds of a new civilisation.


Our Project

Emerge is a response to the meta-crisis, which shows its face in the emergencies of climate, politics, environment and meaning. We believe not only that our challenges are interconnected, but that we must connect in new ways to grapple with the most urgent problems of our times. Linking people, projects, networks and ideas, we investigate what is emerging. We are also a community of practice, exploring new patterns of living, working, being and sense-making. 

The emergence of a more conscious society has already begun. Emerge connects transformative and inspirational innovators and initiatives across the globe. We spotlight the most daring pathfinders and visionaries who are using systems thinking, driving spiritual renewal or personal and cultural transformation, and who lovingly seduce cynical minds into seeing more beautiful alternative worlds.

On our website, we shine a light on those offering their work, wisdom and new ways of thinking. We tell the stories of the fast-growing multitude of renegade seekers and their projects, highlighting the patterns that unite the different tribes of transformation. Joining the dots between agents and actions all over the world, we seek to awaken the wild imagination needed for making the new civilisation a reality. 


Who We Are

We are a rapidly growing community of doers, dreamers and thinkers looking to create a new kind of “We.” Connecting individuals and collectives, Emerge celebrates visionaries who explore dynamic solutions to our planet’s greatest challenges. We are activists, artists and academics, entrepreneurs and educators, philosophers and philanthropists, spiritual seekers, soul workers and scientists. Diversity of perspectives and openness to audacious thinking are our core strengths. Showcasing and analysing the most daring insights from across the system-changer ecosphere, we seek to serve all those who share an Emerge sensibility.

We are supported by and part of Perspectiva.

Director of Emerge: Anna Katharina Schaffner
Director of Practice and Community: Ivo Jurian Mensch
Co-Initiators: Tomas Björkman and Jonathan Rowson


How We Work

We connect and make visible. We celebrate people, their networks, their wisdom and their initiatives. On our website, we present carefully curated profiles and insights of the most daring system-changers of our time – the wizards, challengers and rebels, the pioneers, teachers, artists and healers. And the warriors. All over the world, networks and organizations are rising up to explore unchartered intellectual, spiritual or cultural terrain that invites new ways of being, thinking and doing. 

These enterprises are at the heart of the Emerge network. We seek to clarify patterns, combine visions and link people and practices to create a powerful new social movement. Our mission is also to translate between the different tribes of transformation in the system-changer sphere, and to highlight the questions and practices that unite us.

We hold regular meetings and events in a growing number of major cities around the world. We meet for annual international gatherings (including two completed in Berlin and Kyiv). We aim to support each other, to expand our circles of belonging and to increase our collective agency and visibility.


What We Want

We are at a fork in the road. Two kinds of possible future for humanity are likely: further entropy and collapse, or the emergence of a higher-order system that is more complex and elegant than our current one. While we do not hold the answers we know how we wish to grapple with the problem. 

The emergence of a better world starts with a new social imaginary and new ways of working and dreaming together. We wish to inspire and inform the manifestation of the kinds of “We” the world needs to address the many crises of our time – a plural, humble and radically inclusive “We.” 

We believe that inner change and social change are interlinked. Shaped by biological, social and psychological forces, we are embodied, encultured and embedded. If we want to save our souls, systems and societies, we need to foster our willingness to engage with complexity. We must re-learn to dance with uncertainty, to listen to the future and to combine insights from multiple domains in daring new ways. Perhaps most importantly, we must find new ways to connect with each other.


What Can You Do?

The emerging future will be shaped by all of us. Our survival depends on smart collaboration. We see you as a vital part of our mission. We’d love to weave your voice and vision into all that is being created and keep you updated on the launch of new projects, events and initiatives around the world.  Email contribute@whatisemerging.com and sign up to our newsletter here.


Support Us

We are an independent non-profit project. If you would like to support us financially please get in touch.