Subject	Proposal to Institute a System Dynamics Applications Award
To	System Dynamics Society Policy Council

From	Alan Graham
Date	February 26, 2003

This is the proposal I expect to present to the Policy Council Meeting held at MIT on March 3, 2003. As will be seen below, the proposal is as much a framework and process as it is a detailed specification of the award and the awards process. Appropriate specification, review and improvement processes are included in the proposal.

Purpose of proposed award

To provide encouragement and recognition of practical use of System Dynamics to improve the well-being of the organizations that use it, and their stakeholders. The proposed award is in frank imitation of the INFORMS Edelman Applications Prize, which has enjoyed success in publicizing successful application of Operations Research.

The award

The award shall provide tangible recognition both within the System Dynamics community and the peers within organizations use it. Until such time as a sponsor for monetary award may be found, such recognition may consist of, e.g., plaques or framed certificates for all authors, public presentation of the work at the International System Dynamics Conference, and publication of that presentation in the System Dynamics Review. In time, other venues for recognition may be judged more appropriate.

Eligibility

To be eligible, an application must

Be reported in a paper completed no more than 7 years prior to the call for nominations. It is understood that for applications especially, it will often be the case that significant time must pass before the results of application are known, and the information about the application no longer provides potential advantage to competitors of the applying organization. Papers may be published papers or submitted original manuscripts.
Report on work substantially completed no more than 10 year prior to the call for nominations
Have at least one named author who was at the time of the application a full-time employee of the applying organization
Have the authors agree, that if the paper is selected as the winner, to present the work at the International System Dynamics Conference following the announcement of the award, and subsequently publish that presentation in the System Dynamics review. It is understood that if the nomination does not win, that fact will remain confidential within the awards committee and the Policy Council.
Not have previously won the Forrester prize

Finalist papers from previous years that have not yet won the award shall be automatically re-nominated, without further action from the authors. Renomination of a finalist paper shall continue until either the time limits (above) are exceeded, the paper wins the award, the authors resubmit an improved version, or if the first author specifically requests that the paper be withdrawn from consideration.

Selection of award winners

The selection criteria shall be, in order of importance:

First and by far foremost, demonstrating that the use of System Dynamics significantly and demonstrably improved the well-being of the applying organization and its stakeholders, in a way more difficult or impossible to have achieved without the use of System Dynamics principles.

Note that applying organizations may be either for-profit corporations or governmental organizations. “Think tanks” and other research organizations and consulting companies are explicitly excluded as applying organizations, unless System Dynamics is used to improve their own business.
Giving new learnings that improve the state of the art in applying System Dynamics
Giving scholarly references tying the work to existing System Dynamics literature
Giving scholarly reference tying the work to existing literature of disciplines relative to the application, such as marketing, finance, strategy, microeconomics, etc.

The chairman of the awards committee shall define or update specifics of the selection process, including guidelines for:

1. What constitutes System Dynamics (as opposed to use of simulation software, or control theoretical techniques)

2. Specifics of selection criteria, including numerical evaluations,

and notify the Policy council of those specifics in advance of the selection process.

At least three members of the awards committee (see below) will review each nominated paper and give a numerical evaluation. These numerical ratings will be used to select the top 14 nominations.

All of the awards committee members (or alternates substituted to avoid conflicts of interest) will review each of the top 14 nominations and give a numerical evaluation. These numerical ratings will be used to select the top 6 nominations, which will be considered finalists.

The chairman of the awards committee shall specify a final selection process plan, specifically including any required recusals and use of alternate committee members to resolve conflicts of interest. The final selection process should include both discussion amongst committee members and explicit voting of some kind. The chairman of the awards committee will submit the final selection process plan to the Policy Council. The Policy Council may, on majority vote of the entire Council, instruct the Chairman to revise the plan, or take other measures as appropriate.

The awards committee will give written feedback to each of the finalists, with a view to improving both the work and the exposition of it, within one month following the decision.

Selection of awards committee

The Policy Council shall select the awards committee according to the numbers and criteria below.

In alignment with the award criteria (above), the awards committee must have a majority of members whose full-time occupation is to use System Dynamics in actual application, to be used for the purpose of guiding decisions and actions by the sponsoring organizations, be they for-profit, or public sector. A distinct minority of the committee may be “full-time” academics with significant applications experience.

It is understood that significant applications of System Dynamics will often involve competitive information and industry reputation, and information that may be considered proprietary until such time as business advantage accrues to disclosing it. Therefore, both to encourage nominations of applications, the identify and contents of nominations shall be held confidential. All awards committee members and any Policy Council members who come into knowledge of specific paper contents and identities of applicants must be willing to sign and sign a non-disclosure agreement that restricts disclosure of that knowledge to the awards committee and Policy Council members with a Need to Know. The non-disclosure agreement must include agreement to disclose potential conflicts of interest, and to recuse from the process if appropriate or requested. The terms of the non-disclosure agreement must be available to any applicant or potential applicant on request.

It is understood that conflicts of interest may arise, for example, amongst award committee members who compete for applications business, and that award committee members may in fact have significant involvement with work underlying nominated papers. Therefore, the awards process must include checks at multiple points for conflict of interest, and also provide alternate committee members for the cases where members must recuse themselves from the process. The Chairman shall be responsible for specifying the process for preventing conflicts of interest in writing to the Policy Council, prior to the start of evaluations.

The awards committee shall consist of 5 members, including a chairperson and vice chairperson whose full-time occupation uses System Dynamics in actual application. In accordance with the guidelines above, there shall be no more than 2 full-time academics on the awards committee. Similarly, there shall be 4 alternate members, no more than two full-time academics as alternate members

Academic qualifications are not to be avoided in the makeup of the awards committee, providing that the dominating criterion for membership is significant experience in practical use of System Dynamics.

Start-up

The Policy Council and/or the chairman of the awards committee will create a more complete schedule of events needed to start the awards process. It is suggested that:

1. The award and the selection processes for papers and committee membership be announced at the 2003 International System Dynamics Conference and in the earliest practical issue of the System Dynamics Review, as well as other relevant journals and venues.

2. The Policy Council specifies initial nomination format (length, hardcopy vs electronic copy, etc.) and (temporarily) receives nominations

3. Finish awards committee selection and obtaining non-disclosure agreements by September 30, 2003. At that point the awards committee takes custody of nominations to that point.

4. Close nominations October 31, 2003 and begin the selection process

5. Finish selection and confidentially advise nominees of their status (winner, finalist, non-finalist)

Review by Policy Council

The Chairperson of the awards committee shall lead periodic reviews by the Policy Council of the application award process and results, with a view toward continuous improvement of integrity and effectiveness of the awards process in achieving its purpose. These periodic reviews shall occur prior to October 31 in any year in which they are awarded. Reviews should be held yearly for the first three years following the first award, i.e. October 2004, 2005, 2006, and every two years after that.

As is implied at several points above, it is considered ultimately the responsibility of the Policy Council to charter and ensure the effectiveness of the applications award and its associated process.

Submitted for your consideration.

Regards

Alan Graham