The conceptual framework behind the Limpopo Basin Curriculum Innovation Network (LBCIN) has been developed collaboratively by partners from all of the participating Institutions of Higher Learning. It comprises:

1. The social ecological system (SES) of complex interacting issues that constitute a system of risks, namely, water, land, climate, economic and governance. The conceptual framework will support IHLs to share knowledge of the interacting system risks, and to collectively analyse and understand the risks and their complexities. The conceptual framework will also include a focus on key activities associated with these sub-systems and link these to social learning, governance and wider knowledge management responses.
2. The resilience building responses that are needed to tackle the issues that are being experienced and are likely to emerge in future. Some of the main conceptual tools being utilised to frame resilience building are: complexity and resilience thinking, systemic collaborative inquiry, expansive social learning, and transformational practices. The resultant intervention responses include: climate change adaptation, disaster risk management, integrated water resources management, natural resources management , climate smart agriculture and agroecology, ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation, green economy and renewable energy development, and multi-stakeholder governance of natural resources.
3. The educational responses and processes of curriculum innovation, learning programme review and development, and the production of associated conceptual tools. The major thrust and added value of this IHL programme lies in curriculum innovation and transformative learning as an education response and process in the higher education sector, which is responsible for educating the next generation of leaders and managers in the catchment. The curriculum innovation and learning process will tap into a set of emerging principles (see figure below).