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Conference The Society’s annual international conference is held alternately in North America and Europe, with occasional appearances in Asia and the Pacific Rim. These conferences, and the meetings of local chapters and interest groups… (read on) 2013, July 21 – 25, Cambridge, MA, USA 2014, July 20 – 24, Delft, Netherlands

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The program will be filled with thought-provoking sessions, presentations of ground-breaking research, networking opportunities, and delightful social events. Invited and Contributed Plenary Presentations include:

• Biofuels
• Human Capital Development
• Global Modeling
• Market Dynamics
• The CEO as Modeler

New this year, the Model Expo: A chance to experiment with models presented in the program and interact with their creators. To see the full list of plenary, parallel, and poster sessions please visit the conference website Sessions by Thread.

Wednesday is Practitioners’ Day, with a focus on the application of System Dynamics models to real world issues. The plenary and parallel sessions will highlight practical applications of the methodology and the results achieved. Know anyone who is interested but too busy to attend the full conference? Practitioners’ day, combined with the Thursday workshops, will provide an opportunity to see what is being done and pick up new skills in just a couple of days.

Note that late July is a peak season for Boston hotels. Please make your room reservation with the Hyatt Regency Cambridge as soon as possible.

Information and continuous updates about the PhD Colloquium, Modeling Assistance Workshop, Thursday Workshop offerings, Newcomer Orientation, Spouses’ Lounge, Travel and more are available on the conference website! Register today!

Early this year we announced a new page that lists Bibliography updates and recent publications related to System Dynamics. Since the end of January, nineteen peer-reviewed articles, published in seventeen journals, have been submitted. You may also access links to the System Dynamics Review current issue and early view from the update page to see all articles included in this update. The published-elsewhere references are listed in order of receipt and will remain listed until the next Bibliography update. We are confident there are more articles; we would like to hear about them and publicize your work. Send references for recent articles or articles of any age to office@systemdynamics.org to be included on the list and in our Bibliography.

An updated version of the Bibliography, with over 10,000 references, is now available. Please visit the System Dynamics Bibliography page.

To celebrate the fourth-year anniversary of the first module (class) in Dynamic Modeling of Public Policy Systems, at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, John Richardson’s students will be giving “final examination” presentations describing their original model-based projects to a wider audience comprising members of Singapore’s academic and public policy communities. This will also mark the completion of the module by more than 100 students from Singapore, China, India, Japan, Indonesia, Korea, Pakistan and the many other nations that the Lee Kuan Yew School serves. Most students will return to or embark on careers as public policy professionals.

What does the module in the Dynamic Modeling of Public Policy Systems entail? Students are expected to define a policy relevant problem and craft a system dynamics model that addresses it. After rigorous validity and robustness testing, the model is used to diagnose the problem and point to policy recommendations. These must be accessible and compelling to potential clients with no background in dynamic systems modeling. These final oral presentations, backed up with written reports and documentation, provide class members with the opportunity to demonstrate the level of mastery in public policy modeling that they have attained..

The Journal of Operations Management (JOM) will publish a special issue: System Dynamics: Emergence, Reinforcement, Adaptation and Traps. Special issue editors include members John Sterman and Rogelio Oliva. JOM has a very broad definition of “Operations Management” (logistics, capacity planning, resource allocations, behavioral decision making, process improvement, services, etc.) so modeling or experimental work submissions are encouraged. Information about the JOM’s aims and scope and guidelines for authors are available at online.

We are happy to announce some special events at the 2013 System Dynamics Conference. A practitioners’ track is organized to demonstrate the value of system dynamics in real world settings, and will be capped off by the CEO as Modeler plenary. This plenary session will bring together three CEOs who, in addition to running their companies, build models to help them do so. It is hard to get more hands-on than this. Also, a showing of Last Call, a documentary film on the genesis and message of The Limits to Growth, is tentatively planned. The schedule will be announced in early June, with updates posted on the conference website. The program promises to provide the breadth and depth needed to really understand what people are doing in the field.

The Modeling Assistance Workshop, the Red Ribbon Event, and the Newcomers’ Orientation are perennial favorite events, all returning to the Cambridge conference. Details on these items and more can be found on online.

Registration is now open. Take advantage of opportunities to gain and share knowledge in the field, network and more. We hope to see you in Cambridge, Massachusetts; the dates of the conference are July 21 – 25, 2013.

A University of Bergen student team developed a system dynamics model to win this year’s Case Competition in Bergen, Norway. The team included Aklilu Tadesse and Melak Ayenew, master’s students from Ethiopia who study under SD professors David Wheat, Pål Davidsen, and Erling Moxnes; plus Hasan Baniamin and Mizanur Rahman from the department of administration and organizational theory. The team members shared the cash prize of 20,000 NOK ($3400). The Case Competition is an annual collaborative case study project sponsored by Study Bergen, the Career Centre Springbrettet, and representatives from business and industry. This year’s problem stemmed from the office relocation plans of Aibel AS, an engineering and construction company within Norway’s energy sector. Five student teams competed to find solutions to the challenges of change management and logistics. The teams had two weeks to identify the core problem, develop a solution, write a report, and make a presentation to the judges. The candidates were free to chose any problem solving method. When announcing their decision, the judges said the winning team produced a focused and solution-oriented response to the problem, and that the SD model gave the solution a sound scientific basis. The students engaged in this project on their own, outside of their regular study schedule. Their initiative as well as success made their professors very proud. These sources provide more details: Utdanningibergen.no; Springbrette.org

Lou Alfeld, longtime member and coauthor of Introduction to Urban Dynamics has published his first novel, Starseeds, as an e-book. Based on hard science and reasonable assumptions, this story presents a realistic scenario that could conceivably occur tomorrow. The book describes a scientific investigation of several tiny artifacts with very unusual attributes and reaches a surprise conclusion. Lou describes his book as “fictional science” rather than science fiction as the plot does not invoke any of the science fiction clichés. While no modeling is included, feedback through evolutionary processes does play a large role in the development of the story.

Rogelio Oliva has received the 2013 Distinguished Achievement Award in the category of teaching at Texas A&M University, the sixth largest university in the US, with 48,000 students. The selection is rigorous and the recipients are chosen by a campus- wide committee composed of faculty, students, former students, and staff. This university-wide honor encourages and rewards superior classroom teachers. It recognizes the commitment to the learning process exemplifying the meaning of teacher/mentor in its highest sense. The award is designed to distinguish those teachers who maintain high expectations of their students and ensure academic rigor in their courses. These teachers recognize their responsibilities in motivating and contributing to the overall development of their students as learners and future professionals. The award is testimony to the esteem in which Rogelio is held by his colleagues. Congratulations to Rogelio!

The University of North Dakota (UND) and the University of Bergen (UIB) signed an agreement on Tuesday, March 19th, to exchange students, faculty and research. This agreement has established a new partnership between UND and UIB to solve the social problems associated with the western North Dakota’s oil boom. System Dynamics approach will be used in this collaboration to allow social scientists and engineers to work together and develop an integrated view of social problems. Society members Pål Davidsen, a faculty member in the Faculty of Social Sciences at UIB, and Scott Johnson, the principal advisor at the Institute of Energy Studies (IES) at UND are participating in this project. For more details, please read UND News; NBC News

The UK Chapter of the System Dynamics Society is planning the commemorative event “Geoff Coyle: legacy and prospects for system dynamics” on May 29, to be held at the Royal School of Mines, Imperial College, London. The event will be hosted by the Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College. Speakers will include Eric Wolstenholme, Jonathan Coyle, Bob Cavana, and John Morecroft. For the speaker topics, hotel information and further details, please visit the proposed programme.

The UK Chapter of the System Dynamics Society awarded the Steer Davies Gleave Prize for the best example of applying systems modelling to address a real-world problem at its annual gathering held in early February in London.

The recipient of the award was The Centre for Workforce Intelligence (CfWI), for the development of System Dynamics to help inform decisions about the number of doctors and dentists to train in future to meet predicted workforce requirements. The CfWI supported the Health and Education National Strategic Exchange (HENSE) on this project in 2012. The award was accepted jointly with the Decision Analysis Services (DAS) which partnered the CfWI in this project. Dr. Graham Willis, Head of Research at the CfWI, Dr. Andrew Woodward, Lead Modeller at the CfWI and Dr. Siôn Cave of DAS accepted the prize.

Dr. Graham Willis said: “It takes many years to train doctors and dentists, about 15 for a hospital consultant, so an under or over-supply cannot be corrected quickly or easily. The cost of training and employing an individual is also significant so it is highly important to have as much information as possible when making vital decisions about the number of students entering training.”

The aim of this prize is to promote the use of System Dynamics to address real-world problems, and to raise awareness of System Dynamics by publicizing, examples of such good work. It is awarded for the best application of System Dynamics to a problem of significant public interest in the UK. The prize is sponsored by Steer Davies Gleave.

Jorgen Randers spoke about his internationally recognized book 2052: A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years to a capacity audience as guest of the NYS Writers Institute. The February 6^th talk included perspectives on humanity’s possible futures with particular emphasis on the impact of global warming, pollution, water scarcity, food shortages, and the collapse of the fossil fuel economy. He also participated in an informal seminar given at the University at Albany, Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy speaking on his challenging book. Jorgen is a founding member of System Dynamics Society, Professor of Climate Strategy at the BI Norwegian Business School, and formerly served as Deputy Director-General of the World Wildlife Fund.