Experience is at the core of meaningful learning.

Experience shapes the way we interact with ourselves, others and the world around us. The capacity to reflect on past and present experiences is at the core of any meaningful individual and collective transformation. Providing a space in order for individuals and communities to learn from their lives is therefore the safest way to make sure that they grow according to values that they truly embrace.

Method is key for innovation and problem solving.

Method refers to the idea of “following a path” and to adopt a "mode of investigation". Significant scientific research, philosophical ideas, practical solutions, as well as artistic expressions, require the development and acquisition of methods that go beyond mere prescriptions and techniques. Encouraging people to search, create, experiment, invent and discover innovative methods is the most efficient way to enhance one's capacity to elaborate new ways of knowing and feeling the world.

Critique is an art of living.

Being critical means to be able to discriminate, interpret, evaluate, argue, judge and challenge a lived reality or an observed phenomenon. By challenging what is usually taken for granted, critique reinforces (self) awareness, autonomy and empowerment. The development of a critical capacity plays a crucial role in understanding the dynamics that shape our identity (e.g., gender, age, ethnicity, cultural and social background, religion, profession) and how we learn to position ourselves towards the world, others and oneself, throughout our lives.

Complexity is a way of being.

Embracing complexity means being capable of apprehending the world in a way that relates what is usually considered as separated, disjointed, discontinuous, antagonistic, contradictory or paradoxical. It requires dealing with uncertainty, privileging self-implication and adopting transdisciplinary ways of knowing. Privileging complex approaches is essential, because it challenges the way knowledge is usually produced, organized, and transmitted in schools, in academia, in professional environments, and in everyday life as well.

Education and research should be emancipating.

Emancipation refers to the action of freeing oneself from a state of dependency (e.g., emotional, intellectual, cultural, political, financial). It requires opening a space and time of rupture and is carried on by a movement that transforms relationships between human beings. Education and research have an emancipatory potential. In order to be empowering, they have to provide people with the resources (e.g., time, space, experience, knowledge) required to transgress the boundaries of what they take for granted.