View source for 60th Annual Conference and Meeting of the ISSS - University of Colorado, Boulder, USA

{{Event
  |acronym=60th Annual Conference and Meeting of the International Society for the Systems Sciences
  |image=2016_california.png
  |project=International Society for the Systems Sciences
  |place= University of Colorado Boulder, CO, USA
  |dates= July 24 - 30
  |moderator=
  |participants_type=
  |participants_num=
  |total_duration= 6 days
  |link=[https://journals.isss.org/index.php/proceedings60th/article/view/3006/938 | View Program and Abstracts]
}}
<br><br><br>
==The Conference focus==

Continuing ISSS’ exploration of The Anthropocene from last year’s amazing conference in Berlin, we now turn our attention to building relationships to realize sustainable systems in the future of the Anthropocene. This involves a balanced consideration of human and natural systems, traditionally treated separately. While this task may seem incredibly complicated to those trained to see the world through the lens of diverse phenomena, our emerging understanding of systemic complexity, likely characterizing the next Century of scientific and social thinking, suggests several avenues for finding or creating order in that diversity.<br>

Our focus in this conference is on how to get there – what are the “next steps,” especially steps that will empower the next generation. It is clear that vision and genuine optimism about the future must come first. However, such enthusiasm must also be followed with genuine advances in science, policy, and praxis that incorporate new norms and a more expanded view of complex reality.<br>

Despite the mysteries in this effort, we must remember that we have 60 years of experience developing important methods, theories, praxis, and paradigms. This represents a 60-year head start at a time when the world is suddenly awakening to the critical need for new approaches to deal with global human dominance of our hyper-complex relation with nature. The prospect of being suddenly in charge of such a system that has run itself effectively for 4.5 billion years, producing us, is certainly daunting. It challenges us to refine every skill we have and to innovate new capacity.<br>

Even with numerous head starts in many disciplines, modern humanity is struggling to realize the capacity to live systemically and sustainably. The state of the world is clear evidence of that at a time when calls are increasing for “Ecological Civilization.” The “next step” is therefore to identify and remove whatever impediments have been in place to prevent conceptual and practical progress despite many significant advances in systems thinking. This requires re-educating ourselves in new, more appropriate thinking and methods. For me, this means making a serious attempt to establish a working concept of wholeness. Without it, we cannot truly consider systemic sustainability except to hope that it will emerge as we rearrange the furniture.<br>

For the above reasons, we have placed a strong emphasis in this conference on transforming Science and Education. Science needs to see a bigger picture, and Education needs to explore new possibilities. A truly heartening trend today is the enthusiastic and rapid development of Sustainability Science and a genuine shift in mainstream thinking toward modern but healthy re-integration of humanity and nature. This is no longer a fringe agenda but central policy of most governments and international bodies. What we lack, however, is systemic capacity – the very things ISSS has been working on for 60 years. That is the reason I believe this year is the right time to reconnect with groups we may have had to distance from in the past in order to explore new ideas because now those ideas are needed and wanted.<br>

Day 1 of the conference will glimpse a vision of the future and pathways leading toward it, particularly emphasizing innovation (going beyond repair) and the educational needs for a new agenda in “Systems Literacy.” If we are to “change the game” as Gunter Pauli will emphasize in the first Keynote, we have to allow our students and emerging professionals to explore new ideas creatively and without past restrictions. We have to remove the taboo against “holistic” ideas and actively support research and development of holistic science and technology. These are not out-of-reach goals.<br>
[[Category: ISSS Annual Conferences]]