Our annual summer workshop will be held in conjunction with the INCOSE Symposium event held on July 13-16, 2015, in Seattle, Washington, USA. The Systems Science Workshop will be held on Saturday, July 11th at the Hyatt Regency Bellevue on Seattle's Eastside.
All the presentations & handouts for this workshop will be located here.
(https://sites.google.com/site/syssciwg2015iw15/systems-science-workshop-at-is15/)
If you are attending the Symposium then the workshop will only cost an additional $10 to cover the cost of handouts. If you are only attending the workshop, then you will need to register for one day of the symposium. Symposium registration is here.
The workshop will be repeated in Berlin, Germany on 2 August 2015 in conjunction with the ISSS Conference 2015 (http://isss.org/world/Berlin_2015) held Aug 2-7, 2015. The Berlin workshop is free for attendees of the ISSS conference; otherwise €100. Registration for the Berlin workshop is here (http://isss.org/world/Berlin_Registration).
Attendance of either workshop will qualify for 8 PDU INCOSE credits.
INCOSE Workshop: “Systems Philosophy and its Relevance to SE”
Seattle Workshop:
Date: Saturday 11 July 2015 Time: 9 am - 5 pm
Place: Hyatt Regency Bellevue on Seattle's Eastside, USA
Presenters: David Rousseau, Jennifer Wilby, Julie Billingham, Stefan Blachfellner (via Webex)
Workshop Leader: James Martin
Berlin Workshop:
Date: Sunday 2 August 2015 Time: 9 am - 5 pm
Place: Scandic Hotel Potsdamer Platz, Berlin, Germany
Presenters: David Rousseau, Jennifer Wilby, Julie Billingham, Stefan Blachfellner
Workshop Leader: Gary Smith
Abstract:
The Systems Science Working Group is exploring how Systems Philosophy can be used to support expansion of the theoretical foundations of Systems Engineering (SE). This workshop will provide an overview of our plans for work in this area and explore some of the challenges and opportunities of this project.
Systems Philosophy is a branch of philosophy concerned with developing a scientific worldview based on the systems paradigm. The significance of this for SE is that the development of a systems-scientific worldview can be used to support the development of a General Systems Theory (GST). GST is a theory encapsulating the objective principles underlying the behaviours that recur across multiple kinds of systems ("systemic isomorphies") and also the schema (‘gestalt’) that connects them. The development of a fully-fledged GST should be a key ambition for SE, because SE does not have a unifying theory that can guide the further development of SE’s theoretical foundations in a principled way.
The workshop will explore how Systems Philosophy can aid the development of GST, and how a GST can help unify and expand the theoretical foundations of SE. Taken together, Systems Philosophy and GST can be used to develop a “General Systems Transdiscipline” (GSTD), which will greatly extend the capacity of SE to deal with complexity.
For more details about the “Systems Philosophy for SE” project, please visit our project webpage.
Presenter Bios:
David Rousseau PhD BEng FRSA is the Founder and Director of the Centre for Systems Philosophy in Surrey, UK, the Editor-in-chief of the journal Systema, a member of the Scientific Council of the Bertalanffy Centre for the Study of Systems Science (BCSSS)), and a Visiting Fellow of the Centre for Systems Studies in the University of Hull. He is a Council Member of the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS) and the ISSS Special Integration Group (SIG) Chair for Systems Philosophy and the ISSS SIG Chair for Research towards General Theories of Systems. His early career involved more than 20 years in senior management, programme management and systems engineering roles in the aerospace and semiconductor industries. In 2007 he returned to academia, where he studied Philosophy of Mind and investigated exceptional human experiences from a scientific systems-philosophical perspective. His current research is focused on the unity of knowledge, the modelling of the nature of Nature, the ontological foundations of moral intuitions, and the development of a General Systems Transdiscipline.
Dr Jennifer Wilby is a Senior Lecturer in the Hull University Business School (UK), Vice President for Administration and a Past President in the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS), an Academician in the International Academy of Systems and Cybernetics, a member of the Scientific Council of the Bertalanffy Centre for the Study of Systems Science (BCSSS), and a board member and Past President of the United Kingdom Systems Society (UKSS). She holds a PhD in Management Systems, an MPH in Public Health, an MSc in Cybernetic Systems and a BA in Political Science. Her current research is focused on using Systems Philosophy, Hierarchy Theory and transdisciplinarity to develop a General Systems Transdiscipline that can address pathologies in the global system.
Julie Billingham BSc(Hons)(Mathematics) is an e-commerce business strategy consultant at Demandware Inc, and Scientific Advisor to the Centre for Systems Philosophy (CSP). Her early career included 12 years modelling and simulation to support decision making, initially in the defence industry, subsequently in the environmental sciences and later in a range of enterprise spatial contexts. Having co-founded an online library leveraging the then nascent concept of social networking, she turned to start-up consulting with a focus on emerging web opportunities and analytics-driven decision making. At Demandware she advises some of the world’s largest online retailers on strategies for optimising their e-commerce operations, and has a particular interest in systemic approaches to organisational development. In the CSP, her current research focus is on strategies for developing a General Theory of Systems.
Mag. Stefan Blachfellner is the Managing Director of the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (BCSSS) in Vienna, a Vice President of the International Federation for Systems Research (IFSR), and the Conference Manager for the European Meetings on Cybernetics and Systems Research (EMCSR). He chairs the Special Integration Group on Socio-Ecological Systems and Design in the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS), is the founding editor of the journal Systema, and an editorial member of the International Journal of Markets and Business Systems. He has broad experience as an entrepreneur and business consultant, and has taught entrepreneurship, leadership, creativity and innovation, innovation management, future studies, and various systems theories at several Universities and in professional management training programs in Austria, Germany, China and the USA. His current research is focused on the development of a General Systems Transdiscipline as a foundation for a theory of Systems Design, with a view to improving the methods for addressing the complex challenges facing Socio-Ecological Systems.