Yiannis Laouris

Yiannis Laouris Years of service 2025-2026 Type of role ISSS President Current Post SIG Chair: Systemic Dialogue Field(s) of Study Neurophysiology Systems Engineering Information Technology Peace and Conflict Resolution Education University(ies) Leipzig University, Germany University of Arizona, Tucson, USA Specialization(s) Structured Democratic Dialogue virtual dialogues scaling-up deliberations ORCID 0000-0002-9081-5849 Notable Achievements Provost's Teaching Award Medical Innovation Award Silver Award, INPEX 95 Award for Creativity Civil Society Award Silver Award Hellenic Society for Systemic Studies Global Education Innovation Award External Links https://www.linkedin.com/in/laouris/ https://www.futureworlds.eu/wiki/Yiannis_Laouris

Yiannis Laouris is the Lead Scientist and Chair of Future Worlds Center in Cyprus. He joined ISSS for the first time in 2004 during the Crete conference on the invitation of Kenneth Baush and Alexander Christakis, where he presented Information technology in the service of peacebuilding: the case of Cyprus; peace and conflict work conducted in Cyprus between 1994 and 2004. He and Marios Michaelides, along with several Turkish speaking Cypriots, played a key role, as Member of the Cyprus Conflict Resolution Trainers Group in creating an embryonic peace movement using Interactive Management as introduced by Benjamin Broome.

Early life

Laouris was born in Paphos, Cyprus, in 1958. He attended The English School, the Pancyprian Gymnasium, and the Acropolis Gymnasium. He served in the Cypriot National Guard as the first Cypriot senior cryptographer after the 1974 Cypriot coup d'état and the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus. He graduated from the medical school of the Karl Marx University (today known as University of Leipzig), enjoying three parallel scholarships because of his top grades, and completed a PhD in Neurophysiology with summa cum laude with Prof. Peter Schwartze at the Carl Ludwig Institute of Physiology. Laouris and his wife Joulietta were the first students to be awarded a PhD before graduating from university, an achievement that received press coverage. He continued his research in neurophysiology at the Georg-August University Göttingen with cyberneticists and systems physiologists Professors Hans Diedrich Henatsch and Uwe Windhorst. He subsequently joined the Robotics, Prosthetics, Motor Control Group at the University of Arizona, where he collaborated with Douglas G. Stuart. In the U.S., he also completed a Masters in Systems and Industrial Engineering. More recently, he completed a PhD in Systems Engineering at Portsmouth, UK.

Contributions in reforming education to the needs of the digital era

In 1992, Laouris decided to devote a decade of his life to a vision he called CYBER KIDS. The project involved the development of an innovative, team-, project based curriculum that was grounded on the concept of KnowledgePacket to construct lesson plans that required collaboration and comprised of multiple dimensions, including the value for real life, mental development, creativity, etc. By 1999, CYBER KIDS reached 15,000 children in Cyprus, i.e., 20% of the country’s youth population (ages 6–15) and contributed against brain drain by employing almost 200 young scientists. In 2005, Laouris founded the Cyprus Safer Internet Center to promote the safer use of internet across Europe. Yiannis is one of the twelve experts commissioned by the Digital Tasks Force of the EU to develop the ONLIFE Manifesto .

Contributions in Dialogic Design Science

Yiannis promotes the application of broadband technologies and Structured Democratic Dialogue as tools to bridge the digital-, economic-, educational- and interpersonal divides on our planet. He is an international leader in the development of theory, methodology and tools to support the science of structured dialogic design. His current research focuses towards developing systems to enable scaling up participatory dialogic processes to engage thousands of people in meaningful, authentic dialogues asynchronously, thus accelerating institutional and societal change,,. His team has developed IdeaPrism, Concertina, Parallel ISM, Cogniscope v3 and other tools. Laouris is also credited for establishing SDD as a Problem-Structuring Method within Community Operations research,,,.

Awards

Laouris has been rewarded for his scientific and societal contributions with several awards. Selected distinctions include:

• 1990: Provost's Teaching Award, Arizona, USA; For development of computer-based undergraduate instruction in neuroscience
  
• 1992: Medical Innovation Award, Arizona, USA; For development of computer-based undergraduate instruction in neuroscience
  
• 1995: Silver Award, INPEX 95, Pittsburgh, USA; Innovation Competition Fair with thousands of participants from all over the world
  
• 1998: Award for Creativity by the Cyprus Employers and Industrialists Federation; Awarded to CYBER KIDS
  
• 2008: Civil Society Award, Cyprus; First Award to NGOs pioneering in social transformation
  
• 2008: Silver Award Hellenic Society for Systemic Studies; Award to distinguished scientists
  
• 2011: Honorable Mention of the Anna Lindh Award to Future Worlds Center for promoting intercultural dialogue freedom and citizenship
• 2017: Global Education Innovation Award; One of 12 awarded by GENE – Global Education Network Europe to Future Worlds Center for its innovative Map Your Meal project

Selected Publications

• Laouris, Y. (2004). Information technology in the service of peace building; the case of Cyprus. World Futures, 60, 67–79.
• Laouris, Y. (2012). The ABCs of the science of structured dialogic design. International Journal of Applied Systemic Studies, 4(4), 239–257.
• Laouris, Y. (2015). Reengineering and Reinventing both democracy and the concept of life in the digital era. In L. Floridi (Ed.), The onlife manifesto (pp. 125–142). Springer.
• Laouris, Y., & Christakis, A. N. (2007). Harnessing collective wisdom at a fraction of the time using structured dialogic design process in a virtual communication context. International Journal of Applied Systemic Studies, 1(2), 131–153.
• Laouris, Y., Emiliani, P. L., & Roe, P. (2017). Systemic evaluation of actions toward developing practical broadband applications for elderly and people with disabilities. Universal Access in the Information Society, 16(1), 247–255.
• Laouris, Y., Erel, A., Michaelides, M., Damdelen, M., Taraszow, T., Dagli, I., Laouri, R., & Christakis, A. (2009). Exploring options for enhancement of social dialogue between the Turkish and Greek communities in Cyprus using the structured dialogic design process. Systemic Practice and Action Research, 22(5), 361–381.
• Laouris, Y., & Laouri, R. (2008). Can information and mobile technologies serve to close the economic, educational, digital, and social gaps and accelerate development? World Futures, 64(4), 254–275.
• Laouris, Y., Laouri, R., & Christakis, A. N. (2008). Communication praxis for ethical accountability: The ethics of the tree of action: Dialogue and breaking down the wall in Cyprus. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 25, 331–348.
• Laouris, Y., & Michaelides, M. (2018). Structured democratic dialogue: An application of a mathematical problem structuring method to facilitate reforms with local authorities in Cyprus. European Journal of Operational Research, 268(3), 918–931.
• Laouris, Y., Michaelides, M., Damdelen, M., Laouri, R., Beyatli, D., & Christakis, A. (2009). A systemic evaluation of the state of affairs following the negative outcome of the referendum in Cyprus using the structured dialogic design process. Systemic Practice and Action Research, 22(1), 45–75.
• Laouris, Y., & Romm, N. R. (2022). African youth's visioning for re-inventing democracy in the digital era: A case of use of structured dialogical design. World Futures, 1–44.
• Laouris,Y.,Taraszow,T.,Damdelen,M.,Da!glı,I.,Beyath,D., Karayiannis, A., Dye, K., & Christakis, A. N. (2015). Examining economic integration and free trade within Cyprus using structured dialogic design. Action Learning and Action Research Journal, 21(1), 11–52.
• Laouris, Y., Underwood, G., Laouri, R., & Christakis, A. (2010). Structured dialogue embedded within emerging technologies. In G. Veletsianos (Ed.), Emerging technologies in distance education (pp. 153–173). Athabasca University Press.
• Laouris, Y. (2022). Managing large-scale societal change. In Operations Management. (pp. 97–112), IntechOpen. https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.1000220
• Laouris, Y., & Romm, N. R. (2022a). Structured dialogical design as a problem structuring method illustrated in a Re-invent democracy project. European Journal of Operational Research, 301(3), 1072-1087. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2021.11.046
• Laouris, Y., & Romm, N. R. (2022b). African youth’s visioning for re-inventing democracy in the digital era: A case of use of structured dialogical design. World Futures, 78(1), 18-61. https://doi.org/10.1080/02604027.2021.2014112
• Laouris, Y. (2023). Structured Dialogical Design Frameworks for Addressing Complexity in Systems Engineering (Doctoral dissertation, University of Portsmouth).