What constitutes wisdom in practice, its potential purposes and how it might be best developed through both educational and other kinds of experiences are enduring and contemporary imperatives. This opening chapter provides a description and justification of the imperatives driving the need for currency in understanding wisdom in practice. A key imperative is addressing the types and scope of challenges contemporary societies now face, including securing social, economic, and global environmental outcomes commensurate with sustainable communities, nation-states, and potentially, the global community. These challenges require decision-making and practices that can accommodate the range of factors necessary to realise positive outcomes. Whilst these are enduring concerns for humanity, the level and kinds of challenges in the contemporary era and their complexities have demanded such a depth of human capacities. Consequently, it is necessary to understand what constitutes these capacities through approaches that are fresh and open to emerging understandings, whilst respecting and building upon what has occurred earlier. Part of addressing this complexity is to draw upon a range of explanatory accounts (i.e., theoretical positions and practices) and to reconcile their contributions rather than relying upon single disciplinary bodies of knowledge. Thus, this chapter sets out the imperatives driving the need for a comprehensive and applicable concept of wisdom in practice and identifying the kinds of purposes to which such efforts need to be directed. It was these kinds of considerations that led to the initiation of, collaborations engaged, informing the design and enactment of the programme of research informing this volume.