About KSI

Mission: Creating spaces where people, organisations and communities can discover new ways of relating, leading and thriving. Through research, dialogue, and immersive field-based expeditions that explore ecotones, right relationships, and regenerative entrepreneurship in practice.

Values: 

Encounter
Create the conditions for people to slow down, become present, and genuinely encounter themselves, others, and the place they are in.

Connect
Deepen awareness of the relationships that link people, communities, and the living world, fostering trust, understanding, and belonging.

Co-create
Transform shared insights into meaningful action by exploring new possibilities and shaping solutions together.

KSI is dedicated to understanding how regenerative capacity emerges in living systems.

Drawing on sociology, systems thinking, leadership, entrepreneurship and nature-based inquiry, KSI explores the conditions that enable individuals, communities, organisations and destinations to thrive in times of change.

Our work is guided by a framework built around three interconnected concepts:

  • Ecotones — the fertile spaces where different worlds meet.
  • Right Relationships — the quality of connection between people, communities, economies and ecosystems.
  • Regenerative Entrepreneurship — the practice of creating value that strengthens the vitality of the whole system.

While these ideas are applied in fields such as leadership, tourism, community development, wellbeing and entrepreneurship, they ultimately point to a broader challenge: how we learn to participate more consciously in living systems.

Below is an example of how this framework can be applied in regenerative tourism. The very same framework applies to leadership development, inner development, mental health activities and much more.

KSI as a Liminal Space

KSI is more than a research institute.

It is a liminal space.

A place between disciplines, between theory and practice, between who we are and who we are becoming.

In many areas of life, the old models no longer provide sufficient answers, while new ones have not yet fully emerged. Such moments can feel uncertain, but they are also rich with possibility.

KSI creates spaces where people can slow down, observe more deeply, engage with complexity, and explore new ways of relating to themselves, others, nature and the systems they are part of.

We see these spaces as modern ecotones: places where learning, transformation and innovation become possible.

Karel Sterckx

Founder KSI Expeditions

Sociologist | Wilderness Guide | Leadership Development Coach

Volunteering in Leading From Within | Nature vzw | Hiking Advisor vzw

About me

I originally started working in outdoor leadership development, guiding small groups through demanding natural environments and reflective experiences. Over time, however, my attention shifted from performance and leadership towards a deeper question: how do we relate—to land, to other people, and to ourselves?

Much of this shift emerged through years of working as a wilderness guide in and around Inari, in the northern part of Finnish Lapland and within the broader region of Sápmi, homeland of the Sámi people. The longer I worked there, and the more I learned with and from Sámi perspectives, the more aware I became of how deeply Western assumptions shape the way we travel, learn, consume landscapes, and relate to local communities. I increasingly felt that something in our relationship with these places was out of balance.

Rather than leading me towards certainty or expertise, this awareness created a growing sense of responsibility. I realised that my work was not to speak on behalf of Indigenous communities, nor to turn their perspectives into concepts or products, but to engage my own community in a different way of relating.

This understanding gradually moved my work away from leadership training and towards what I now call Restorative Encounters: small-scale, circle-based journeys and workshops designed around the principle of right relationship with Indigenous peoples, the Land, and ourselves.

My intention is not to spread awareness primarily through theory or preaching, but through direct experience and encounter. I believe that when people slow down, listen differently, and enter into more reciprocal relationships with land, local hosts, and each other, something shifts that cannot easily be taught through information alone.

My work is further informed by sociology, adventure education, regenerative thinking, decolonisation studies, and ongoing learning processes, including several years of participation in the “4 Seasons of Indigenous Learning” program offered by a Canadian organisation focused on Indigenous-informed learning and relationship-building.

Rather than positioning myself as an expert with answers, I see my role as designing and holding relational spaces in which meaningful encounter and reflection may become possible—with humility towards the places and people who host us.