The System D Academy programme trains researchers-in-action with the goal of exploring informal and self-organising systems. System D comes from the French word débrouillardise, and means being self-reliant and resourceful. More than half of the world’s population lives and operates in System D, but the system is also found in highly formalised societies, often surviving underground or off the radar. The flexibility, self-organisation and intuitive processes found in System D can complement the rational models and static ideologies of formalised thinking.