What is systemic change? How do different programmes define it differently? What are the common pathways to achieving systemic change? These and other questions around systems thinking and change were challenged at the BEAM Conference 2016. Adopting a World Café approach, programmes were invited to present their contrasting definitions of systemic change and how each pursues and measures it, revealing commonalities and differences and, at the same time, making the concept of, and discussion around, systemic change available to a wider audience.