Systems Thinking in Practice: Students Tackle Real-World Challenges
2026-04-29 Since April 2025, Master’s students at Leuphana have been working on real-world organisational challenges as part of the ‘Systems Thinking for Entrepreneurs and Managers’ course, in collaboration with Viva con agua, the Social Entrepreneurship Alliance Hamburg, Avenir Lüneburg and Goldeimer – using systems thinking as a tool.
How can a complex problem be truly understood – rather than simply tackling its symptoms? This is precisely the question that Master’s students at Leuphana University Lüneburg have been exploring since 24 April 2025 in the course ‘Systems Thinking for Entrepreneurs and Managers: A Practical Application’. As part of the Leuphana Sustainable Entrepreneurship Certificate (L-SEC) in the complementary programme, they are learning the fundamentals of systems thinking – from causal loop diagrams and systems mapping to leverage points – and applying these directly to real-world projects.
Four practice partners, four systems, one method
What makes this course unique is that students do not work on case studies, but with real organisations. The four practice partners – Viva con agua, the Social Entrepreneurship Alliance Hamburg, Avenir Lüneburg and Goldeimer – bring specific challenges from their day-to-day work to the course. Together with the student groups, they analyse these using systems thinking methods and develop system-based intervention strategies. Regular coaching sessions with lecturer Dr Frederic Kohlhase support the process. The course culminates in a presentation of the systems analyses and proposed solutions directly to the decision-makers of the partner organisations in early July 2026.
The Leuphana Sustainable Entrepreneurship Certificate (L-SEC) combines sustainability and business studies with transdisciplinary learning. This course exemplifies this approach: students not only acquire methodological knowledge but simultaneously create real added value for organisations driving social change.