What is sensemaking?

Sensemaking is the work of seeing what isn't yet legible in systems that can't afford to be wrong. It is the practice that sits between detecting a signal and acting on it: between knowing something is off and knowing what it means.

Sensemaking is the independent home of a research group studying that practice. We study the gap between what sensors detect and what institutions can make sense of, and the research publishes here.

How the group operates

Confronting Unknowns, the flagship paper, was authored collaboratively by the Confronting Unknowns '26 Program: a cohort of engineers, intelligence analysts, pilots, policy researchers, communications specialists, and scientists who convened at MIT in January 2026. JMill (opens in new tab) convenes the group and teaches the program at MIT. The work publishes here as it becomes public.

Sensemaking is operated independently and is not an MIT-published property.

Contact

Reach out to JMill at jmill@mit.edu. To follow the work, join the mailing list.