The Nine Discoveries® reveals a recognisable structure in how development takes form.
Development rarely happens as a series of separate, unrelated events, even though it can look that way from the outside. Beneath the surface there is usually an underlying progression, a way in which things tend to emerge, take shape and mature over time. The Nine Discoveries offers a way of observing that progression, and the same underlying pattern can be recognised across many different scales.
The Nine Discoveries did not begin as a theory about everything. It emerged through observation. Hisae Sophia Dias spent more than twenty years in direct observation through her creative education practice. The pattern first became visible in her work with children, and was later recognised as extending well beyond that original context.
The framework is composed of nine discoveries that form a developmental sequence.
The same developmental pattern can be recognised in a person's creative practice, in an organisation finding its shape, in a community moving through change, and across wider societies and eras as they pass through periods of transformation.
The same framework can be applied to very different subjects and scales. The First 9 Discoveries for a Rich Fulfilled Life Ahead explores human and creative development. The Last Acceleration explores technological acceleration, energy, civilisation and wider developmental change through the same developmental lens.
Professional Education
A professional education in visual arts and creative development, where the framework informs how adults study and practise.
Publishing & Educational Resources
Books and educational resources that explore the framework at different scales.
Kids Art Fun
A separate, licensed real-world application of the framework in children's creative education.
For Organisations
The framework as a developmental lens for organisations and institutions.
These are current expressions of the framework, with further applications able to emerge across other fields and contexts.
The framework can be used to observe where something is in its development, look back at how its developmental pattern has formed, and consider the direction in which it may be moving. Its focus is developmental direction and formation, rather than the prediction of isolated future events.