51th Annual Meeting of the ISSS - Tokyo 2007
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The 51st annual meeting of the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS) marks the beginning of another half-century history of interdisciplinary collaboration and synthesis of systems sciences. The ISSS is unique among systems-oriented institutions in terms of the breadth of its scope, bringing together scholars and practitioners from academic, business, government, and non-profit organizations. Based on fifty years of tremendous interdisciplinary research from the scientific study of complex systems to interactive approaches in management and community development, the 51st annual meeting of the ISSS intends to promote systems sciences as a holistic and integrated scientific enterprise.
1. Main Conference Theme
"Integrated Systems Sciences: Systems Thinking, Modeling and Practice"
Under the theme “Integrated Systems Sciences: Systems Thinking, Modeling and Practice”, the 51st annual meeting of the ISSS will be held in Tokyo, Japan from August 5 to 10, 2007. It attempts to promote systems sciences as an approach to complexity in a broad sense, identified in organizations, communities and societies, and their environments, in such a holistic and integrated way that we draw on all of systems sciences from systems thinking and systems modeling to systems practice.
Systems thinking promotes holism as its primary intellectual strategy for handling complexity, whether the approach is hard or soft, carried out by academia or practitioners. Instead of analyzing complex systems by breaking them down into their parts, it advocates studying them as `wholes’ using systems concepts. Because Tokyo is, thankfully, a crossing point of western and eastern cultures, the meeting should provide an ideal platform for collaboration of western and oriental systems thinking.
Systems modeling aims at describing, analyzing and prescribing a real entity or phenomenon by constructing a variety of systems models. It includes mathematical models, conceptual models, computer models and simulation tools.
Finally, systems practice, or practical applications of systems thinking/ideas, is the greatest success of systems sciences in recent years. It has shown that systems sciences have the ability to translate theoretical notions into the practical domain through the use of systems methodologies, models and methods. The further refinement of these methodologies, models and methods, together with consideration of how we can use them in combination to tackle the multi-faceted problem situations, will be emphasized in this meeting. The annual meetings of the ISSS have a tradition of interaction and rich conversation, integrating provocative plenary discussions with breakout sessions organized around Special Integration Groups (SIGs) and other interactive formats for dialogue and synthesis. Along with the traditional SIGs, we encourage the participants to organize additional sessions.
2. Plenary Guest Speakers
Currently, we are in negotiation with possible plenary speakers for ISSS 2007 from government, industry and academia as well as NPO/NGOs. The prominent speakers are invited from inside as well as outside the ISSS. The following speakers have agreed to give a talk so far:
- “New Paradigm of Civilization in the 21st Century”, Dr. Soho Machida, Buddhist priest and Professor, Hiroshima University, Japan
- “Success Factors of Japanese Manufacturing Industry (Tentative)”, Professor Takahiro Fujimoto, Tokyo University, Japan
3. Call for Papers
Although the conference will accept papers related to the following areas of research, the list is neither exclusive nor restrictive. Proposals of new sessions and tracks are very welcome. Each session chair takes the final responsibility for running his/her session. All submitted papers are encouraged to state how relevant the paper is with regard to systems thinking, systems modeling and/or systems practice.
3.1. Areas proposed by existing Special Integration Groups (SIGs) and current exploratory groups:
- Systems Applications in Business & Industry
- Hierarchy Theory
- Duality Theory
- Systems Philosophy & Systems Ethics
- Systems Modeling & Simulation
- Futurism & Systems Change
- Meta-Modeling & Systems Epistemology
- Systems Psychology & Psychiatry
- Information Systems Design & Information Technology
- Research Towards General Theories of Systems
- Medical and Health Systems
- Living Systems Analysis
- Designing Educational Systems
- Spirituality and Systems
- Human Systems Inquiry
- Critical Systems Theory & Practice
- Systems Biology and Evolution
- Applied Systems & Development
- What is Life/Living
- Women and Children
- Systems Specific Technology
- Organizational Transformation & Social Change
- Systems Pathology
- Foundations of Information Systems
- Arts Based Inquiry
- Daily Roundtable - please refer to the invitation by the Roundtable Coordinator
3.2. Areas proposed especially for 2007:
- Aging Systems
- Agent-based Social Simulation
- Decision Systems
- Strategy Management
- Sustainable Development
- Knowledge Management
- Learning Organization
- Optimization
- Systems Complexity
- Social Systems Theory
- Chance Discovery and Meta-synthesis
- Cybernetics
3.3. Other sessions:
In addition to paper presentations, Student SIG session, ISSS Roundtable, and Mini-Conversation will be organized. Anyone who is interested is welcome to participate in them without prior notice.
4. Important Dates
- December 5, 2006: The start of abstract submission and registration. (Please allow at least two weeks for your abstract to be reviewed.)
- February 1, 2007: The start of off-line registration.
- February 1, 2007: The start of on-line hotel reservation system.
- March 1, 2007: The deadline for panel, workshop and stream proposals.
- March 1, 2007: The priority deadline for abstract submission. (Abstracts submitted after this date and before June 1 will be considered for inclusion in the program on a space-available basis.)
- May 31, 2007: The deadline for full papers. (Late papers received after May 31, 2007 may still be accepted to the conference, but they are included on the CD-ROM proceedings for the subsequent year.)
- June 1, 2007: The deadline for abstract submission.