International Federation for Systems Research
c/o OSGK – Austrian Society for Cybernetic Studies
Freyung 6/6, A-1010 Vienna Austria
Tel +43 664 28 29 978
[email protected]
URL: http://www.ifsr.org
Announcement: Themes and Teams for the
Nineteenth IFSR Conversation
Linz, Austria
Sunday, 8 April – Friday, 13 April, 2018
The Executive Committee of the International Federation for System Research is pleased to announce the themes and teams for the Nineteenth IFSR Conversation in Linz, Austria, which will be held at the Seminarhotel, St. Magdalena, Linz, Austria. Thanks to all members of the IFSR community who submitted topics for consideration this year. We had a significant number of excellent submissions, so it was a challenge to choose the most timely and relevant. The final topics, teams, and team leaders are:
1. Active and Healthy Aging – Gerhard Chroust and Shankar Sankaran
Demographic changes especially in the Developed World make aging one of today’s growing concerns. The aim is to foster Active and Healthy Aging (AHA) in a sustainable society. Support for AHA has to compensate for more or less insufficient capabilities of Seniors. This is a highly interdisciplinary challenge which involves practically all domains of life: physiology, medicine, psychology, social sciences, society, technology, logistics, infrastructure, architecture, economy, etc.
2. What is Systems Science? - Gary Smith and Jennifer Makar
After decades of development in the field of systems science, multiple perspectives, synergies, conceptualizations, and practice from diverse sources and backgrounds indicate a possibility of emerging coherence. We will bring together thought leaders to explore how these various threads can weave together into a more integrated understanding to make progress towards the unification of systems science as a coherent system for application in a variety of contexts.
3. Self-Transgressive Exploration of Next Generation Science Standards and General Systems Theory - Jennifer Wilby
In recent years efforts to develop General Systems Theory and efforts to reveal unity in science have largely been pursued in isolation from each other and even further fragmented within those two main areas of endeavor. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) were developed in a broad collaboration, which included the National Research Council, National Science Teachers Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This conversation will encompass a systematic exploration of how these two independent bodies of work can benefit from cross-fertilization, resulting in visual mapping outputs and written narrative that are an incremental contribution to realizing the original intentions of GST.
4. Systems Practice – Nam Nguyen and Constantin Malik
This team will comprise systems practitioners who will share their experience of applying systems approaches in practice. The team will also be discussing how to make systems approaches, systems tools more applicable to their respective fields and practice, with specific potential cases such as community healthcare in the US, transport systems in the EU, public and cyber security in Vietnam, worldwide, etc.
5. Data Driven Systems Engineering Approaches – Ed Carroll
Engineering programs (products, technology, processes, and people organization) are often based on the structures and plans of previous programs, whether (or not) those past programs were successful. Little consideration is given to whether those past program processes, tools, technology, people, or organizations are optimally suited for the new product or processes. This conversation focuses on the data, processes and systematic approaches that have been successful to transform an engineering program toward a fully digital engineering environment, examining approaches such as a model-based engineering.
Please join us in congratulating these teams on the acceptance of their topic proposals. They can now begin preparations for the Conversation.
Questions about the 19th IFSR Conversation should be directed Mary Edson at [email protected]. We look forward to a vibrant Conversation in Linz this coming spring.