The intellectual framework that makes sustainability solvable
The Center for Integrated Knowledge Invention (CIKI) offers research, advisory, education, and training services grounded in the theory of integrated knowledge creation, the world's first integrated intellectual framework for sustainability. This theory has been developed over a span of 13 years of research, composed of original doctoral work and post-doctoral independent research, which has unearthed the foundation of a new avenue of knowledge, termed as the scholarship of sustainability.
The problem CIKI solves
The Crisis
The sustainability crisis is the defining challenge of our time. Its costs — financial, environmental, and social — compound with every decade of insufficient response.
The Root Cause
Fragmented, siloed thinking produced this crisis. Organizations and governments treat climate, water, poverty, and inequality as separate problems. They are not. They are interconnected manifestations of the same systemic failure.
The Solution
Thinking on the totalities of things/realities resolves what fragmented thinking cannot. The scholarship of sustainability — grounded in the theory of integrated knowledge creation — provides the intellectual foundation organizations need to act with coherence, rigor, and genuine effect.
What CIKI offers
CIKI offers five interconnected service lines, all grounded in the same intellectual framework — providing an unmatched depth of expertise.
Consulting & Advisory: Strategic sustainability advice for corporations, governments, and institutions — from integrated knowledge assessments to full strategy development.
Government & Policy Advisory: Integrated policy design and cross-sector sustainability analysis for federal, state, and local government agencies.
Training & Professional Development: Training modules on sustainability for organizations — practical, sector-adaptable, and directly applicable to real challenges faced.
Curriculum & Education Design: Curriculum redesign for universities, schools, and vocational providers, using a pedagogical framework that emerged from CIKI’s ‘Integrated Knowledge Framework’.
Speaking & Events — Keynote presentations, workshops, and public lectures on the scholarship of sustainability and integrated thinking.
The intellectual foundation
At the heart of CIKI's work is a single intellectual breakthrough: the theory of integrated knowledge creation, unearthing the foundation of the scholarship of sustainability as a new avenue of knowledge. Developed by Dr. A M M Maruf Hossain through rigorous doctoral and post-doctoral research and validated through three books published along this line, it provides the scaffold to construct integrated knowledge required to solve the problems of unsustainability.
This scaffold is not a reporting standard or a compliance checklist or a strategic framework in the conventional sense. It, instead, is the intellectual foundation that makes all of those tools coherent, defensible, and genuinely effective. It applies to any organization, sector, or policy domain, simply because the root of unsustainability is the same everywhere: fragmented, disconnected thinking.
Publications
The Intellectual Structure of Sustainability
Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2025
The foundational scholarly work. Establishes the theory of integrated knowledge creation, which unearthed the foundation of the scholarship of sustainability as a new avenue of knowledge. This is the intellectual architecture underpinning all of CIKI’s works. It is an essential reading for academics, policy-makers, and sustainability professionals seeking a first-principles understanding of sustainability.
Thinking in Sustainability
Center for Integrated Knowledge Invention, 2025
The pedagogical companion. Presents a framework of eight pedagogical principles, grounded in the scholarship of sustainability. This pedagogical framework teaches sustainability as a genuine form of thinking — not as a set of facts or compliance criteria. Besides, it also serves as a practitioner’s guide to sustainability, as it presented evidence-informed principles for understanding and applying integrated sustainability concepts in professional and personal life. This books has been written for educators, curriculum designers, professional trainers, executives, and anyone committed to genuine sustainability thought or practice.
To Think in Sustainability
Center for Integrated Knowledge Invention, 2025
The children's edition. Introduces sustainability thinking to young readers in an accessible and engaging language. It’s contents in their entirety are grounded in the same intellectual framework as the two books listed above. It has been designed for use both in classrooms and at home as a part of CIKI's broader mission to embed integrated thinking from early childhood.
