Life-long collaborative learning practices are an essential component of IDEAN‘s philosophy. In present times, social, economic, and environmental settings are changing at an ever-faster pace. Today, to be born and raised and to die within a particular and stable cultural setting is a marginal experience. Swift demographic change, the progress in information and bio-technologies, progressing climate change, or the increasing scarcity of resources – all require arrangements of life long collaborative learning. Our ability to act and to trigger change surpasses our capacity to understand and to represent the current situation (the cultural critic Frederic Jameson refers to this dilemma as the crisis of orientation). Facing rapid changes and unpredicted events, present day societies require continuous collaborative learning processes. In addition to scientific knowledge and technological competence, IDEAN‘s ‚learning culture‘ embraces diverse social capacities and tacit knowledge.