可持续性，环境限制，社会包容和福祉等具有全球意义的重大挑战不仅仅是技术问题。这些挑战使工程学与更广泛的非工程学学科，其他利益相关者以及现在和将来存在的担忧联系在一起。系统思考是要以更全面的方式查看诸如此类的问题。它旨在使工程师能够开发新的视角，应对复杂性并获得高度新颖的解决方案，从而以有效，公平的方式平衡不同利益相关者的需求和要求。
Globally important Grand Challenges such as sustainability, environmental limits, social inclusion and wellbeing are not merely technical problems. These challenges place engineering in contact with a far wider range of non-engineering disciplines, other stakeholders, and concerns that exist now and in the future. Systems thinking is about viewing problems such as these in a more holistic way. It is about enabling engineers to develop new perspectives, to cope with complexity, and achieve highly novel solutions that balance the needs and requirements of different stakeholders in effective, equitable ways. Systems thinking is taking engineering beyond isolated technical specialisms and is at the forefront of the Civil Engineering discipline. As such, it is a cornerstone of the Institute itself. It is embedded in the mix of academic staff, who cover the full spectrum from engineering through to human sciences, and it is embedded in the inter-disciplinary nature of research topics such as infrastructure resilience, carbon accounting, sustainability assessment, risk analysis, efficient use of renewable and non-renewable resources, and human factors.