Learn More about the IC Method
What if the problem wasn't about
what you think
but how you think?
IC Method
The IC Method was developed and tested at the University of Cambridge from 2005 – 2022
At each stage, the IC method applies research skills to:
- Understand the root causes of social division, polarization, and conflict
- Develop IC courses for in-person groups or classrooms, with online facilitator
- training
- Deliver IC courses to help individuals and groups move beyond black-and-white, zero-sum thinking
- Train professionals and organisations online about how to deliver IC courses
- Measure cognitive changes through pre and post testing (and control-intervention and longitudinal research designs)
- Use integrative complexity coding, (developed by Professor Peter Suedfeld and colleagues, 1992), one of psychology’s most reliable, predictive measures which indicates whether intergroup conflict escalates to violence or shifts to resolution through perspective taking and cognitive flexibility
- Publish results in peer reviewed journals, academic publications, and reports
Mission
To reduce social and intergroup conflict and promote cooperation by cultivating nuanced, flexible thinking in individuals, groups, and communities.
Vision
A world where polarization is replaced by constructive engagement across differences.
IC Courses Around the World
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About Us
IC Method History at a Glance
- 1994-1998 Sara Savage begins PhD in psychology at the University of Cambridge, researching integrative complexity (IC) in moral reasoning.
- 2005 – After 9/11 and 7/7, Dr Sara Savage and colleague Dr. José Liht launched our first IC course, an intervention to raise IC.
- 2005–2015 – IC method refined: new measurement tools, facilitator training, and testing across 13 countries, developing new types of IC courses applied to extremism, sectarianism, post-war reconciliation, and education at all levels.
- 2011 – IC Thinking (Cambridge) Ltd founded to deliver IC projects in the UK and abroad (Kenya, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Finland, Bosnia, Macedonia, Kosovo).
- 2015–2019 – Expanded research and types of IC courses to include embodied cognition, trauma psychology, and cognitive neuroscience. Collaboration with colleagues in Pakistan, Dr Feriha Peracha and Raafia Raees Khan, form a longstanding research partnership.
- 2020 – COVID-19 halts in-person work; shift toward online delivery of projects.
- 2021 – IC Educational (Cambridge) Ltd established. Jessica Francar oversees the IC work in Iraq. Maria Essmann co-develops the first completely online IC session, including IC and neuroscience measurement. Custom-built ICT Learning Management System launched in 2025, supports new programs in Syria and Nigeria.
- Today and Future – IC method applied to wider issues: intergroup conflict, social polarisation, educational innovation, corporate training, the risk of AI, and climate inaction.