In Being Interdisciplinary, Alan Wilson draws on five decades as a leading figure in urban science to set out a systems approach to interdisciplinarity for those conducting research in this and other fields. He argues that most research is interdisciplinary at base, and that a systems perspective is particularly appropriate for collaboration because it fosters an outlook that sees beyond disciplines. There is a more subtle thread, too. A systems approach enables researchers to identify the game-changers of the past as a basis for thinking outside convention, for learning how to do something new and how to be ambitious, in a nutshell how to be creative. Ultimately, the ideas presented address how to do research.

Building on this systems focus, the book first establishes the basics of interdisciplinarity. Then, by drawing on the author’s experience of doing interdisciplinary research, and working from his personal toolkit, it offers general principles and a framework from which researchers can build their own interdisciplinary toolkit, with elements ranging from explorations of game-changers in research to superconcepts. In the last section, the book tackles questions of managing and organising research from individual to institutional scales.

Alan Wilson deploys his wide experience – researcher in urban science, university professor and vice-chancellor, civil servant and institute director – to build the narrative. While his experience in urban science provides the illustrations, the principles apply across many research fields.

Table of Contents:

Preface

Prologue: A Research Autobiography

Part I: Interdisciplinary Research: A systems Approach

• 1. Interdisciplinary research

• 2. Being interdisciplinary

Part II:  Doing Interdisciplinary Research

• 3. How to start

• 4. Establishing a research base-1: system models

• 5. Establishing a research base-2: data

• 6. Doing the research: different kinds of problem solving

Part III: Tricks of the trade

• 7. Adding to the toolkit: explorations

• 8. Adding to the toolkit-2: more on superconcepts

Part IV: Managing and Organising Research

• 9. Managing research, managing ourselves

• 10. Organising research

Bibliography

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Despite governmental and international funding as well as numerous publications on health systems, questions remain. João Costa offers new insight into health systems thinking by emphasizing the social nature of health systems. He traces health systems back to their origins in Ancient Greece and investigates their development throughout history, focusing on the notion of systems’ self-reference, a constitutive feature of social systems. The study is built on Luhmann’s Social Systems Theory and his outline of health as social system. 

Valuable for health professionals, the book discusses communication as lifeblood for making health systems self-referential.

[ See also this author's 2023 book, "Health as a Social System". ]

Contents page:

• Frontmatter

• Contents

• Acknowledgements

Preface

Ch. 1: Introduction

PART I

Ch. 2: Social Systems Theory

Ch. 3: Self-Reference

PART II

Ch. 4: The History of Medicine in Four Acts

Ch. 5: Canguilhem and Foucault

PART III

Ch. 6: “Anatomy” of Public Health: Indicators and Self-Reference

Ch. 7: The Construction of the Self-Reference of Social Health Systems

PART IV

Ch. 8: Concluding Remarks

Ch. 9: Advanced Theoretical Topics

• Appendix

• References

• Brief Glossary of Luhmann’s Terms

• Index

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Keywords:

Health Systems; History of Medicine; Public Health; Self-Reference

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This Handbook is about the past, present, and future of Systems Thinking. It captures the history of Systems Thinking over its first three ‘waves,’ which are thought of as significant paradigmatic time periods in the history of the field. It then introduces a (possible) emerging fourth wave.

The Handbook details the theory and practice of Systems Thinking in the areas of social systems, management and policy. The contributing chapters from numerous authors show the diversity of the field. The first chapter, titled "The Four Waves of Systems Thinking", seeks to identify patterns in that diversity, to demonstrate an underlying unity among the plurality of methods, approaches and interventions throughout the field.

Forty-four chapters present a diversity of systems approaches and methodologies, each illustrated with case studies of real-world application. 

This is a landmark publication, as most handbooks cost over £100 and are aimed at university libraries. By publishing with OpenScience, the editors have been able to make The Handbook of Systems Thinking available free of charge. Also, each of the chapters have been simultaneously published in a special issue of the Journal of Systems Thinking, so there are two ways in which potential readers can find the materials.

The co-editors of the Handbook are Derek Cabrera (Cornell University, USA), Laura Cabrera (Cornell University, USA) and Gerald Midgley (Centre for Systems Studies, University of Hull). 

Background note about the "waves":

It is widely held that Systems Thinking has undergone three somewhat distinct “waves” (or paradigms) of development: (1) “Hard systems” in the 1950s to the 1970s, focused primarily on expert, quantitative modelling, (2) “Soft systems” in the 1970s and 1980s, switching attention to qualitative modelling in the context of participative practice, and (3) “Critical systems thinking”, from the 1990s to the present day, which emphasizes the need to take power relationships into account in systems practice. Critical systems thinking also explains the value of methodological pluralism. This came to be important in the 1990s because, previously, a paradigm war had broken out between first and second wave systems thinkers, with the systems community splitting into two competing camps. Critical systems thinkers demonstrated that the ideas of both camps were valuable for different purposes, and are therefore complementary.

These three waves represent the rich diversity of concepts, methods, and approaches that are available to systems thinkers. Critical systems thinkers were largely successful in convincing academics and practitioners to welcome the plurality of methodologies and methods as contributions to a highly flexible and responsive ‘tool kit’ for systems practice. This plurality, and its value for practice, is the strength of contemporary Systems Thinking. However, 25 years since the arrival of the third wave, a new weakness became apparent that is a direct side-effect of welcoming a diversity of methodologies, methods and concepts —it became virtually impossible to say, in a one minute introduction, what Systems Thinking actually was.

Many of the different methodologies presented in this volume embody different understandings of both ‘systems’ and ‘thinking,’ and as a result, defining what systems thinking is requires an explanation of multiple paradigms. This is problematic, as systems approaches for addressing complex problems are in greater demand from managers and policy makers, yet we are not able to provide a cohesive solution for those who look to systems thinking as an answer.

The field of systems thinking is undergoing major change, brought about by a number of forces, including: (1) the continuing proliferation of methodologies and methods, resulting in an even greater plurality of systems ideas; (2) a fragmentation of the systems research community into multiple, smaller communities focused on subdomains of practice, resulting in more and more diversity of systems terminologies; (3) the resultant problem of the lack of accessibility to newcomers to Systems Thinking has become acute; and (4) a new theory of Systems Thinking has been proposed as the fourth wave, which carries the potential to reunite the field. 

The new theory, known as DSRP, identifies four essential skills that underlie Systems Thinking: making distinctions (D); organizing systems (S); recognizing relationships (R); and taking multiple perspectives (P). Notably, methodologies and methods from the three waves of Systems Thinking involve the practice of these four essential skills, yet the foundational nature of these skills remained unarticulated until now. This Handbook builds on the first three waves to lay the foundation for an emerging fourth wave: the use of DSRP, both to bring unity to the diversity of Systems Thinking, and to offer an understanding of what Systems Thinking is that can be easily grasped by newcomers to the field. It therefore addresses the problems of accessibility and theoretical coherence without sweeping away the diversity of methods and practices that are useful resources to practitioners, decision makers, and others.

The Handbook offers chapters from the major authors associated with each of the three waves (or their successors when the original authors have passed away) on the theoretical and methodological contributions to the field. These authors explain the ideas as they were first introduced into the literature, and also contemporary developments and examples from practice. Every chapter adds value to the existing literature, making this Handbook a cutting edge resource rather than just a compilation of existing ideas that can be found elsewhere.

The Handbook also presents chapters elucidating and applying DSRP theory (categorized as the “fourth wave”). It will also point to potential future developments in the field of Systems Thinking, including the formation of composite methods. It is hoped that this Handbook will provide a simple entry point for people coming to the field for the first time. It will provide insights into the first, second and third waves, ending with methodological pluralism before presenting the patterns that connect all Systems Thinking methods and approaches in the fourth wave.

Attempting to put some structure on the history of the Systems Thinking field allows people to get their head around something unwieldy and large in hopes of applying this new knowledge to a real issue, concern, or problem. It also prevents misleading (and at worst), incorrect statements about the field, leading to the misunderstanding of Systems Thinking’s primary ideas, and application.  

People new to the field assume (based on the "wave" metaphor) that each wave is the current state of the field. This is problematic as it is not how the field sees itself nor how things play out in reality. We must see that what we perceive to be "new" waves are not replacements of the prior - but historical additions and paradigmatic shifts that also coexist in the present time. This means that the important work that came before is subsumed into the new wave , not rejected, ignored, supplanted, or "washed away."

Contents Page: 

• The Four Waves of Systems Thinking / Derek Cabrera, Laura Yenisa Cabrera, Gerald Midgley  

• The Systemic Intervention Approach / Gerald Midgley   

• Integrated Resource Planning: A Systems Approach to Utility Planning / Andrea Turner, Simon Fane      

• System Dynamics in Action / Ignacio Martinez-Moyano   

• PANDA (Participatory Appraisal of Needs and Development of Action): A Multi Methodological Framework / Ann Taket, Leroy White   

• The Simple Rules of Complex Networks: A Heuristic for Determining the Potential Complexity of Any Network and Making Structural Predictions / Derek Cabrera, Laura Cabrera   

• Leapfrog Leaders: How lowlighting content, and highlighting cognitive structure and dynamics can leapfrog leaders to the next level. / Derek Cabrera, Laura Cabrera, Hise Gibson   

• Map-Activate-Check: A Systems Thinking-based Approach to Curriculum and Program Design / Jeremy Solin   

• The Viable System Model: An Introduction to Theory and Practice / Angela Espinosa, Jon Walker, Andrea Martinez-Lozada   

• Ecological Governance / Bryan Jenkins   

• Systemic Thinking for Re-Generative Development / Norma Romm, Janet McIntyre-Mills   

• Evolutionary Learning Laboratories: Diagnosing And Overcoming Complex Or ‘Wicked’ Problems / Nam Nguyen, Ockie Bosch, Kwamina Banson, Thanh Nguyen   

• Feminist-Systems Thinking: From mere principles to a United Nations Framework / Anne Stephens   

• The Future of Systems X?: If you want a better Systems X discipline or program, upgrade your Systems Thinking to version 4.0 / Derek Cabrera, Laura Cabrera, Graeme Troxell   

• Developing and Validating a Measurement of Systems Thinking: The Systems Thinking and Metacognitive Inventory (STMI) / Laura Cabrera, Jessica Sokolow, Derek Cabrera   

• Systems Scribing: An Emerging Visual Practice / Kelvy Bird, Jessica Riehl   

• Dialogic Design Science: An Approach for Co-Creating Visionary Anticipations / Maria Kakoulaki, Thomas Flanagan, Alexander Christakis   

• Delphi Method: A democratic dialectical, consensus seeking open systems approach / Shankar Sankaran, Karyne Ang, Stewart Hase   

• Critical Systems Thinking: An Evolving Systemic Approach / Luis Arturo Pinzon-Salcedo   

• The Universal Cognitive Grammar of Systems Mapping: A Rubric to Evaluate the Various Tools and Techniques of Systems Mapping / Arturo Castellanos Canales, Paulina Lucio Maymon, Derek Cabrera   

• Introduction to Soft Systems Methodology / Giles Hindle   

• Critical Systems Heuristics / Emily Gates, Raquel Muñiz   

• A Systemic Lens on the Multi-store Model/Modal Model / Yeni Oktavia Mulyono, Elena Cabrera, Unur Sukhbaatar, Laura Cabrera, Derek Cabrera      

• Systems and Futures / Anthony Hodgson   

• Adaptive Leadership for Agile Organizations / Derek Cabrera, Laura Cabrera   

• Strategic Assumption Surfacing and Testing (SAST) / Vince Barabba, Ian Mitroff   

•  ‘Hard’ and ‘Soft’ Methods in Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS): Agent Based Modeling (ABM) and the Agent Based Approach (ABA) / Yeni Oktavia Mulyono, Unur Sukhbaatar, Derek Cabrera   

• WSR: A Chinese Systems Approach / Zhichang Zhu   

• Systems Thinking For Systems Engineers: A Foundational Skill / Hise Gibson, Stephen Gillespie, Paul Evangelista, Matthew Dabkowski   

• Developing Personal Mastery in Systems Thinking / Derek Cabrera, Laura Cabrera   

• Defining Learning: A Change in Mental Model / Derek Cabrera, Laura Cabrera   

• AMESH: An Ecosystems Approach to Managing for Sustainability and Health / David Waltner-Toews   

• The Formal System Model: Understanding And Preventing Information Systems Project Failures / Geoff Peters, Joyce Fortune, Diana White   

• Meta Rational Ways Of Knowing / Raghav Rajagopalan   

• The Autopoietic Character of Society / Dionysios Demetis   

• Mixing Methods in Systems Practice / John Brocklesby   

• The Vanguard Method : Beyond Command and Control / John Seddon, Brendan O’Donovan   

• Systems Thinking and the Engineering Leader / James Schreiner, Hise Gibson, Ricardo Morales   

• Systemic Innovation / Erik Lindhult   

• Interactive Planning / John Pourdehnad   

• Systems Evaluation (SysEval): Applying Systems Thinking to Evaluation / Jennifer Kushner, Laura Cabrera, Derek Cabrera   

• Systems Thinking for Project Management? Risky Not To / Fran Ackermann   

• A Literature Review of the Universal and Atomic Elements of Complex Cognition / Derek Cabrera, Laura Cabrera, Elena Cabrera   

• Any Person, Any Study: A Different Kind of Theory of Everything (ToE) / Derek Cabrera, Laura Cabrera 

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This is an open access book discusses readers to various methods of modeling plans and policies that address public sector issues and problems. Written for public policy and social sciences students at the upper undergraduate and graduate level, as well as public sector decision-makers, it demonstrates and compares the development and use of various deterministic and probabilistic optimization and simulation modeling methods for analyzing planning and management issues. These modeling tools offer a means of identifying and evaluating alternative plans and policies based on their physical, economic, environmental, and social impacts. 

Learning how to develop and use the mathematical modeling tools introduced in this book will give students useful skills when in positions of having to make informed public policy recommendations or decisions.

Contents page:

Front Matter

• Analyzing Public Policy Decisions

• Public Sector Systems

• Creating Models

• Modeling Examples and Solutions

• Models for Managing Money

• Solving Models Using Excel

• Discrete Optimization Modeling

• Linear Optimization Modeling

• Some Linearization Methods

• Solving Models Using Calculus

• Lagrangian Models

• Dealing with Uncertainty

• Modeling Stochastic Processes

• Chance Constrained and Monte Carlo Modeling

• Simulation Modeling

• Multi-criteria Analyses

• Fuzzy Optimization

• Conclusion

Back Matter

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Keywords:

Public systems planning; Public management; Operations research; Models for policy analyses; Public evaluation; Policy Analysis; Public policy analysis; Linear Optimization Modeling; Discrete Optimization Modeling; Lagrangian Models; Simulation Modeling

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Systemic Service Design provides a comprehensive overview of how systems theories can be integrated into service design to address complex social-economic-technological challenges. Across 14 chapters split into two sections, the book connects theoretical backgrounds and practical worldwide case studies to explore various approaches to systems thinking.

The field of service design has evolved significantly in recent years, from focusing on touchpoints and user interactions to being seen as a driver for organizational transformation and increasingly, a key component in transdisciplinary spaces involving complex systems. However, while service design has grown over the past few decades, it has also recognized its limitations in addressing complex societal problems. For example, the book highlights how a lack of holistic understanding of the systems in place can lead to service failure, which ultimately results in societal issues relating to unemployment, healthcare, and public transportation. As such, this book offers theoretical and practical resources specifically tailored to service designers in order to equip them with the ability to develop solutions that are appropriate in scope, depth, and feasibility to address these complex issues. Contributing authors draw upon and integrate theories from related disciplinary fields to extend the contextualization of service design within complex systems, providing readers with more scientific frames of reference. The book also draws upon case studies from South and North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia, to offer readers wide-ranging perspectives and real-life examples to further their understanding of systemic service design and demonstrate how to integrate it successfully. 

The book delivers theoretical and practical knowledge for students and designers in the fields of service design, design for policy, social design, and additionally for managers, public and private sector planners, engineers, and politicians. 

The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Contents page:

Ch. 1 - Innovations in theory and practice of systemic service design

By Mari Suoheimo, Peter Jones, Sheng-Hung Lee, Birger Sevaldson

Section I - Theoretical background for systemic service design

Ch. 2 - Blending boundaries: A thorough exploration of systems-oriented design and service design integration

By Mari Suoheimo, Michalina Fidos, Marja Kuronen, Sheng-Hung Lee

Ch. 3 -  Mess Mapping and Gigamapping tools to understand systems in services

By Mari Suoheimo, Floor Kist, Robert E. Horn, Birger Sevaldson

Ch. 4 -  Emerging systemic turn in service design

By Satu Miettinen, Mari Suoheimo, Nicola Morelli, Amalia de Götzen

Ch. 5 -  Dancing with power dynamics inside systemic service design projects

By Mari Suoheimo, Mathilde Tomine Eriksdatter Giske, Shaohua Pan, Michalina Fidos, Peter Jones

Ch. 6 -  Systemic oppression in service design

By Frederick M. C. van Amstel, Bibiana O. Serpa, Fernando Secomandi

Ch. 7 -  Systems-oriented service design in urban planning contexts

By Eevi Juuti, Emilia Rönkkö, Aale Luusua, Piia Markkanen, Helka-Liisa Hentilä

Section II -  Systemic service design cases

Ch. 8 -  Case study of Mess Mapping process: Improving long-term care services

By Robert E. Horn

Ch. 9 -  Social structures relevant to longevity service systems

By Sheng-Hung Lee, Joseph Coughlin, Eric Klopfer, Olivier de Weck, John Ochsendorf, Sofie Hodara

Ch. 10 -  Designing for structural, social and political viability in national-scale systemic interventions

By Jeff Foote, Graeme Nicholas, Gerald Midgley

Ch. 11 -  From state of chaos to the essence of the issue: Framework employing service and systemic design principles in the context of criminality

By Michalina Fidos

Ch. 12 -  Toward the cocreation of digital remote care service ecosystems

By Hong Li, Miria Grisot

Ch. 13 -  Enhancing empathy through AI in service systems

By Titta Jylkäs, Chongbei Song, Satu Miettinen

Ch. 14 -  Conclusions

By Mari Suoheimo, Peter Jones, Birger Sevaldson, Sheng-Hung Lee

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Keywords:

Design; Systemic service design; Service design; System-oriented design; Public sector; Private sector; Innovation; Participatory design

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This open access book explores a range of new and older systems mapping methods focused on representing causal relationships in systems. In a practical manner, it describes the methods and considers the differences between them; describes how to use them yourself; describes how to choose between and combine them; considers the role of data, evidence, and stakeholder opinion; and describes how they can be useful in a range of policy and research settings. 

This book provides a key starting point and general-purpose resource for understanding complex adaptive systems in practical, actionable, and participatory ways. The book successfully meets the growing need in a range of social, environmental, and policy challenges for a richer more nuanced, yet actionable and participatory understanding of the world. The authors provide a clear framework to alleviate any confusion about the use of appropriate terms and methods, enhance the appreciation of the value they can bring, and clearly explain the differences between approaches and the resulting outputs of mapping processes and analysis.

Table of Contents:

Front Matter

1. Introduction

2. Rich Pictures

3. Theory of Change Diagrams

4. Causal Loop Diagrams

5. Participatory Systems Mapping

6. Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping

7. Bayesian Belief Networks

8. System Dynamics

9. What Data and Evidence Can You Build System Maps From?

10. Running Systems Mapping Workshops

11. Comparing, Choosing, and Combining Systems Mapping Methods

12. Conclusion

Index

About the authors:

• Pete Barbrook-Johnson is a social scientist and complexity scientist working on a range of environmental and energy policy topics, using systems mapping, agent-based modelling, and other related approaches. He is a Departmental Research Lecturer at the University of Oxford and a member of the Centre for the Evaluation of Complexity Across the Nexus (CECAN).

• Alexandra S. Penn is a complexity scientist working on combining participatory methodologies and mathematical models to create tools for stakeholders to understand and ‘steer’ their complex human ecosystems. She is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Surrey and a member of the Centre for the Evaluation of Complexity Across the Nexus (CECAN).

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During the last two decades, the interrelationship between water and energy has become recognized. Likewise, the couplings to food and agriculture are getting increasingly obvious and alarming. In the last year, a record number of extreme weather events have been reported from most parts of the world. This is a visible demonstration how consequences of climate change must be understood and alleviated. The impacts of economics, lifestyle, and alarming inequalities are becoming increasingly recognisable. If the wealthy part of the world is not willing not make radical changes it does not matter what the less wealthy half of the global population will do to meet the climate and resource crisis.

The purpose of the book is to demonstrate and describe how climate change, water, energy, food, and lifestyle are closely depending on each other. It is not sufficient to handle one discipline isolated from the others. This is the traditional “component view”. The book defines and describes a systems view. The communications and relationships between the “components” have to be described and recognized. Consequently, the development of one discipline must be approached from a systems perspective. At the same time, the success of the systems perspective depends on the degree of knowledge of the individual parts or disciplines. The catchphrase of systems thinking has been caught in the phrase, “The whole is more than the sum of its parts”. The idea is not new: the origin of this phrase is to be found already in Aristotle's Metaphysics more than 2300 years ago.

The text may serve as an academic text (in engineering, economics, and environmental science) to introduce senior undergraduate and graduate students into systems thinking. Too often education encourages a “silo” thinking. Current global challenges can't be solved in isolation; they depend on each other. For example, water professionals should have a basic understanding of energy issues. Energy professionals ought to understand the dependency on water. Economic students should learn more how economy depends on natural resources like energy and water. Economics must include the environmental impact and ecological ceiling of economic activities.  

Table of Contents:

Front-matter

• Ch. 1: Introduction – setting the scene

• Ch. 2: Systems thinking

• Ch. 3: Climate today

• Ch. 4: Global warming impacts

• Ch. 5: The water perspective

• Ch. 6: The energy perspective

• Ch. 7: The food perspective

• Ch. 8: Economics

• Ch. 9: Lifestyle

• Ch. 10: Crisis or hope

• A1: Units

• A2: Glossary

• A3: Abbreviations

Notes

References

Index         

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