Training Academy for Transformative Change
Training Academy for Transformative Change: Learn to host transformative change with Factor 8, practical tools and a community of peers.
Many people working on sustainability and change recognise the feeling: you see what needs to change, but the system resists. Good intentions are not enough. Organisations, projects and communities often get stuck in complexity, fragmentation, competing priorities, lack of time, resistance, or institutional inertia.
The Training Academy for Transformative Change is a learning and community program for people who want to guide sustainability and systemic change differently.
Grounded in the Factor 8 framework developed at HOST, the House of Sustainable Transitions at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, the program helps participants move beyond quick fixes and surface-level solutions. It gives them the language, tools, methods and confidence to work with deeper systemic change— in their own organisation, company, NGO, consultancy, research project or community with the specific goal to enhance the sustainability agency and effectivity of the organisation and externally to have more impact and collaborations by having more clarity on the own contribution.
This is not just a course about sustainability. It is a learning trajectory for people who want to become more capable hosts of transformative change.
Participants learn how to align head, heart and hands: understanding the system, connecting with motivation and meaning, and translating insight into action.
What will you learn?
During the program, participants develop the capacity to:
understand complex sustainability and change challenges;
zoom out and see the wider system;
recognize recurring patterns, lock-ins and resistance in socio-ecological systems;
identify assumptions, worldviews and dominant stories;
work with uncertainty, discomfort and liminality;
connect people around shared challenges;
use imagination and new narratives as drivers of change;
develop and recognize Islands of Hope: these places and initiatives that are showing that is possible to be respectful to the earth and to people.
authentically position themselves as grounded facilitators of the potential of their organization as an agent in the broader context of systemic change.
design and facilitate meaningful conversations and interventions;
choose the right tools for the right moment in a change process;
translate insights into actionable and enabling conditions.
Factor 8 is the backbone of a personal and collective transformation process. It was developed by Cathy Macharis. For each step practical methods and reflection tools have been developed. Facilitation prompts, online learning resources, the Factor 8 board game, HOST expertise, Inner Development Goals, decision-support tools, and embodied approaches such as climate constellations are connected to this backbone.
For whom?
The Training Academy for Transformative Change is designed for people who are working on sustainability, transition, innovation or organizational change, and who want to strengthen their ability to guide change with others.
The program is relevant for:
sustainability professionals;
people working in companies or public organisations;
NGO and civil society actors;
consultants, coaches and facilitators;
researchers, educators and students;
project leaders and community-builders;
people working on transition, systemic innovation or change management.
It is especially valuable for people who:
feel that their organisation or project is stuck;
want to move beyond isolated sustainability actions;
need tools to work with complexity and resistance;
want to facilitate change processes more consciously;
are looking for a grounded framework and practical methods;
want to connect with others working on systemic change;
do not want to carry change work alone.
Participants do not need to arrive with a fully defined case. They can bring a question, challenge, project, organisation or emerging concern, and develop it during the trajectory. The aim is both to work on a real-world case and to build facilitation capacity that can be applied in other contexts.
What makes this program different?
1. A clear transformative change framework: Participants work with Factor 8 as a practical transformation process for understanding where change gets stuck and what kind of movement is needed next.
2. From knowledge to capacity: The program does not only transfer concepts. It helps participants practise how to host conversations, use tools, guide reflection and support others through change.
3. Head, heart and hands: Sustainability transitions are not only technical or strategic. They also involve motivation, emotions, meaning, courage, role-taking and action.
4. Real-life cases: Participants work with their own context: an organisational challenge, a sustainability project, a community initiative, a company transition, a policy question or another real-life case.
5. A hands-on toolbox: Participants receive and practice with tools they can use afterwards: the Factor 8 game, reflection exercises, system-mapping tools, pattern questions, facilitation prompts, online lessons, decision-support resources and methods for working with narratives, connection and enabling conditions.
6. Open-source spirit: The programme aims to empower participants. Materials and methodologies are shared as openly as possible, so that participants can continue using and adapting them in their own context.
7. A learning community: Working for change can feel lonely. The Training Academy for Transformative Change connects sustainability change agents from companies, NGOs, academia, public organisations, consultancy and civil society. Participants meet peers who share a similar drive to create change, while bringing very different experiences and contexts. This diversity creates a powerful space for safe, authentic exchange, out-of-the-box learning and cross-sector collaboration.
Programme structure
The autumn trajectory consists of four in-person days, including a two-day retreat, supported by an online learning layer between the sessions.
This autumn trajectory will be our pilot version and will have lower prices than the ones that will come later. We will learn together. The program is supported by VLAIO which allows to have lower prices.
The in-person days create trust, depth, embodied learning and facilitation practice. The online layer provides short lessons, tools, reflection questions and resources that help participants continue learning between the sessions.
Day 1 — Meet, frame and diagnose
23 September
The first day introduces the programme, the group and the Factor 8 process.
Participants will:
get to know each other;
build a safe and inspiring learning space;
explore what it means to be an Architect of Hope;
discover Factor 8 as a process for transformative change;
experience the Factor 8 board game;
identify or clarify their own change challenge or case;
begin to diagnose where their organisation, project or system is stuck (step 1: Awareness);
form buddy groups for peer support.
The focus of this first day is to create a shared language, a first diagnosis and a strong community foundation.
Between Day 1 and the retreat — Online and offline learning and tools
Between the first day and the retreat, participants receive online lessons and resources. These create a common foundation while allowing participants to learn at their own rhythm.
The online layer will include:
short videos or lessons by HOST professors and experts;
introductions to sustainability transitions and systems thinking;
explanations of the Factor 8 steps;
tools to analyse systems, actors, patterns and assumptions;
films and examples of Islands of Hope;
reflection and journaling prompts;
case-development exercises;
buddy-group exchanges.
This helps participants arrive at the retreat with a deeper understanding of their own case and the broader change process.
The online sessions go deeper into the background of the different steps:
1/10 12-14h: Factor 8 step 2: Complex systems.
22/10 16-18h: Factor 8 step 3: Patterns: human and ecological rights. Patterns of destructions.
5/11 10-12h Factor 8 step 4: Underlying Worldviews.
12/11 16-18h Factor 8 step 5: Letting Go.
Participants are also invited to join classes at the university that match their theme of interest — such as mobility, energy, or other sustainability topics from the course “Sustainability: an interdisciplinary approach”. They can attend these sessions on the VUB site or follow them at their own pace through recordings.
Days 2 and 3 — Two-day deepening retreat 16-17 November (arrival evening 15 November)
The two-day retreat is the heart of the programme. Participants arrive on the evening of 15 November, so the group can settle in, share a first moment together and begin the retreat with full attention the next morning.
Away from daily work, the retreat creates an immersive space to go deeper into the Factor 8 process. The focus is on understanding why systems get stuck, what needs to be released, and how new possibilities can emerge.
Participants will work on:
system dynamics and recurring patterns (step 2);
interaction loops and collective behaviours (step 3);
assumptions, worldviews and dominant stories (step 4);
resistance, uncertainty and liminality (step 5);
letting go of what no longer serves (step 5);
imagination and new narratives (step 6);
embodied and creative methods;
climate constellations;
peer learning and case work;
facilitation practice.
The retreat is not only about analysis. It is about experiencing transformative change as a process involving head, heart and hands.
Between the retreat and the final day — From insight to practice
After the retreat, participants continue working with their insights and cases.
This phase will include:
online lessons from HOST experts;
tools for facilitation design;
reflection on personal change agency;
buddy-group conversations;
preparation of a practical next step or intervention;
exploration of the conditions needed for change.
The online sessions are:
3/12 12-14h: Factor 8 step 6: Islands of Hope.
15/12 10-12h: Factor 8 step 7: Engage and connect.
The aim is to move from insight to application: how can participants guide a change process differently in their own organisation, company, project or community?
Day 4 — Integration and next steps
20 January
The final day brings the learning journey together.
Participants will:
Factor 8 step 8: do and embody: what do you want to do?
integrate the full Factor 8 process;
share progress on their cases;
practise facilitation approaches;
translate insights into tangible action plans;
identify enabling conditions for change;
reflect on their own development as change agents;
receive feedback from peers and mentors;
strengthen the Architects of Hope community;
celebrate the learning journey.
Participants leave with a clearer understanding of their own role, a set of tools they can use, and a community that can continue to support them.
What participants take away
By the end of the program, participants will have:
The factor 8 book, written by Cathy Macharis,
a practical understanding of the Factor 8 as a process for transformative change;
a shared language for systemic change;
tools to analyse complex change challenges;
all protocols to facilitate the 8 steps of the Factor 8;
facilitation methods for working with groups and stakeholders;
insight into their own role as a change agent;
experience with methods that connect head, heart and hands;
a clearer diagnosis of their own case or challenge;
actionable next steps for their organisation, project or community;
access to online lessons, tools and resources;
peer support through buddy groups;
connection to a wider community of Architects of Hope;
a certificate of participation.
Why join?
Because working for change can be lonely. And because real change requires more than individual effort. It also requires a compass to get direction when the process is stuck. Factor 8 is exactly that. It comes with a toolbox of approaches and methods to get things in motion.
Training Academy for Transformative Change offers a space to learn, practice, reflect and connect. It helps participants move from frustration to clarity, from isolated action to collective intelligence, and from surface-level improvement to deeper systemic change.
The program gives people the tools and confidence to guide change differently — not by forcing solutions, but by creating the conditions in which new possibilities can emerge.
Prices
The first trajectories are framed as part of a scale-up and learning phase, supported by VLAIO. Full pricing will only apply from 2027 onwards.
Trajectory 1 — September to January
Standard participation fee: €1.500 excl. VAT
Supported rate: €1.250 excl. VAT, for participants or organisations with limited training budgets.
Supporter rate: €1.750 excl. VAT, for organisations that can contribute more and help make the programme accessible to others.
Registration
Registrations are open! Be quick because this program will be quickly full. We stop inscriptions when we have 25 participants.
Registration form: Training Academy for Transformative Change
Your Guide: Cathy Macharis
Hello, my work focuses on sustainable transitions, systems thinking and transformative collaboration. I help people and organisations navigate complex change processes — not by offering simple answers, but by creating spaces where new insights, relationships and possibilities can emerge.
I am the founder of the House of Sustainable Transitions at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel: a transdisciplinary platform that brings together researchers, students and societal partners around urgent sustainability challenges. From my research and practice, I developed the Factor 8 process: a framework that connects personal transformation with systemic change. It helps us move from awareness to action, from fragmentation to connection, and from feeling stuck to creating new “islands of hope”.
I would like to bring you in the community of the House of Sustainable Transitions. We need each other to see the bigger picture, to recognise the patterns we are part of, to let go of what no longer serves life, and to co-create new ways forward. In this programme, I will guide you through that journey — with theory, reflection, embodied learning, dialogue and practical tools for your own context. After the training you will be able to guide others with the factor 8 tools.
Professional bio
Cathy Macharis is Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences, where she teaches and researches at the intersection of sustainability, systems thinking, mobility, participation and transformative change. She is the founder of the House of Sustainable Transitions, a transdisciplinary platform that connects academia with society to accelerate the transition towards a more sustainable and just future.
She developed the Factor 8 process, a framework for linking inner transformation, relational change and systemic transition. Her work supports organisations, policymakers, companies and communities in addressing complex sustainability challenges through participatory methods, systemic analysis and co-creative processes. Cathy is also known for her work on multi-actor decision-making, climate constellations and “islands of hope”: real-life initiatives that show how another future is already emerging.
