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Regeneration Index
A diagnostic instrument measuring institutional regeneration on a [−1, 1] scale across three dimensions: decoupling, alignment, and capability.
The R-Index (Regeneration Index) is a diagnostic instrument that measures an institution's regenerative capacity on a [−1, 1] scale. It quantifies how well a system maintains and grows capability over time—whether that system is a hospital, community fund, or climate infrastructure.
Institutions slowly lose capability without clear metrics. Problems surface as crises.
Different sectors struggle with similar issues but lack shared vocabulary to discuss them.
Concepts like "regeneration" remain philosophical until they can be measured.
R-Index makes regeneration operational—something a CFO can read, a board can track, and partners can compare.
R* is not an average. It gates a behavioural score by a structural one, so that a zero on any necessary invariant forecloses the result instead of being averaged away. The structural factor runs over four inputs, the behavioural over three:
How independent is capital from fragility cycles?
Measures structural separation from political cycles, annual budgets, donor mood, and short-term refinancing pressure.
How well does capital cadence match mission cycles?
Measures whether capital flows are synchronized with asset renewal needs—timing, arrival, and sufficiency.
Is system capability going up, flat, or down?
Measures whether functioning assets are increasing at required spec and whether failure incidents are declining. ⚠️ Centred, so zero means holding steady rather than failing — and when it goes negative the architecture stops gating, because good structure cannot soften a falling capability trajectory.
Does capital actually come back?
The share of deployed capital that returns for redeployment. Zero for a grant by definition, which is the case the gate exists to handle. ⚠️ No realised rate has ever been measured, in this corpus or anywhere else.
Does value stay in the system?
Recycling and extraction are independent axes: debt recycles its principal and still extracts. Both are needed, which is why neither can substitute for the other.
The behavioural factor B averages three — capability trajectory, shock resilience and mission-cycle reliability — and averaging is defensible there, because those are matters of degree in the same currency. The structural factor is not averaged, because its inputs are necessary conditions and a necessary condition cannot be traded against another.
G = harmonic mean of (SΔ, SΛ, Ra, X)
B = (BV + Vshock + MCR) / 3
R* = G · B when B ≥ 0, else B
⚠️ Why the gate, and not an average. A harmonic mean vanishes on any zero, so a system with no decoupling cannot score as regenerative however well it does elsewhere — and a grant, whose realised recycling is zero by definition, scores zero however well governed it is.
An earlier version of this index averaged three sub-scores on a 0–100 scale. Set SΔ to zero with the other two at 100 and it returned 66.7 — “robustly regenerative”. An index that certifies a grant-funded system as fully regenerative is not mis-calibrated; it is measuring something other than regeneration. The additive form is withdrawn.
R-Index connects abstract theory to operational reality. It makes PSC (capital model) and RCA (institutional architecture) measurable. When you implement PSC in a community foundation, you can track R-Index moving from 32 to 61. The index becomes the common language across health, climate, and community systems.