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What Are Wicked Problems?

Wicked problems’ are persistent challenges that defy resolution, generally seen as complex and open-ended (Rittel & Webber, 1973).Unlike “tame” problems with ready-made or tested solutions, wicked problems lack clarity in their definition and their solutions are often strongly contested, risky, and subject to many real-world constraints.Examples include extreme poverty, pandemics, nuclear proliferation, climate refugees, and terrorism. Most of the world’s crises highlighted in the Sustainable Development Goals are wicked problems.

What is the Wicked Problems Toolkit?

 This is a Radford University faculty-student collaboration project in

partnership with the United Nations Principles of Responsible

Management Education (UN PRiME) network to develop a Wicked ProblemsToolkit. 


It aims to research and evaluate solutions to wicked problems and create a ‘global commons’ repository (called the ‘Toolkit’) of open educational resources on solving some intractable global problems. The educational resources include case studies, syllabi, teaching exercises, journal articles, and student research outputs. They are meant to be used by educators around the world in their teaching and research on topics related to wicked problems, such as pandemics, vaccine equity, armed conflict, climate refugees, hate crimes, violent extremism, and the mass extinction of species. The team of a dedicated students and faculty

member has been working on this project since December 1, 2022. They

have formed a new student organization, called the

Wicked Society to organize themselves and sustain their work in

researching the causes and consequences of wicked problems and the

search for solutions to them.

Objectives of the Toolkit

• To research and evaluate solutions to wicked problems
• To create a ‘global commons’ repository (the ‘Toolkit’) of open
educational resources on solving the intractable problems of our
time

How will the Toolkit be Used?

  1.  VA Governor’s School for the Visual and Performing Arts and the Humanities Summer, 2023
  2. The Wicked Festivals (November 2023 and April 2024)
  3. Poli Sci Days
  4. OURS Fall and Spring Research Symposia
  5. The Wicked Society team from Radford University will present at the 10th Responsible Management Education Research Conference in
    Lisbon, Sept 2023, hosted by the ISCTE Business School, on the research they have done for the toolkit on solving four intractable ‘wicked problems’ of a global scale.
  6. Poster Presentations of the Wicked Society at Wicked
    Festival, Spring 2023


Click below for a link to the 10th Responsible Management Education Research Conference in Lisbon in September 2023 where Radford students will present their work on wicked proglems. 

Find out more

Find out more about Wicked Society of Radford University Initiatives

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Find out more about the Wicked Society of Radford University Initiati

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