Abstract for: Developing Inclusive Communities of Practice

How we do we develop and diversify the community of practice of system dynamics? Over the last 20 years, there have been numerous critiques and recommendations for addressing the lack of growth in the field of system dynamics (e.g., Barlas, 2007; Homer, 2007; Homer & Richardson, 2018; Jay, 2007; Sterman, 2018). At the same time, there has been a call to diversify the field going back to at least the 2000 Bergen conference and including systematic efforts by the Policy Council to address both the growth of the field and diversity of the field through a variety of initiatives. While we are arguably making progress, both the growth and inclusivity of the field do not match the growth and opportunities in other fields. This work advances methods and empirical research on how to develop and build inclusive communities of practice.