April 10 – 15, 2010, Kloster Pernegg, Austria
For the first time the Conversation will be held in a new location, not in Fuschl am See. The IFSR Conversation for 2010 was held at Kloster Pernegg, outside Vienna (see http://www.klosterpernegg.at/ for details about the location.)
The seminar hotel (a former 850 year old renaissance monastery, but completely modernized and refurbished in the 90s) is embedded in a wonderful, almost untouched landscape and therefore provides a focused and inspiring work atmosphere.
It can easily reached by car in 90 minutes and by train in 2,5 hours from the center of Vienna center and the Vienna Airport(!).
The general theme of the Conversation will be focused on systems and learning. This may include teams working on systems ideas in universities and traditional educational settings, as well as teams concerned about how to introduce systems concepts into other areas of society.
Four teams hwere formed:
- 1. Creating Systems Education Curricula:
- a global network to facilitate useful continuous communication and sharing of lessons learned.
Goals:
a. To create generic curricula for education and learning about systems for the generalist and specialist tracks.
b. To create an active network of systems educators and stakeholders who can benefit from enhanced systems education in having to deal with complex issues.
This team would be led by Ockie Bosch and Kambiz Maani from the University of Queensland in Australia. The theme would continue work begun at the Fuschl Conversation in 2008, and carried through at the ISSS Conference in 2009. - 2. The Science of Service Systems:
- This topic would involve an international team of researchers interested in bringing the systems sciences to the “new economy” of the 21st century. With the industrial production as the dominant mindset of the 20th century, the advent of the Internet and globalization call for new ways of thinking for scientists, engineers, managers and designers, and the education and training programs through which knowledge is disseminated. This conversation, led by David Ing, will continue on threads initiated at ISSS Brisbane 2009.
- 3. Learning Systems for Sustainability :
- Sustainability has become a major topic within universities and institutions involved in development initiatives. Sustainability recognizes the complexity and interconnectedness of global and regional challenges such a climate change, water shortage, energy supply, resources availability, and so on. At the core of sustainability challenges are questions related to the way human and human activity systems live, learn and interact with their environment. This team will focus on two objectives:
a. identifying the systemic principles relevant to formal and informal programs focused on sustainability (both educational (e.g., degree programs and community workshops/trainings), and entrepreneurial (e.g., social businesses and cause-driven ventures));
b. designing a meta-organization (e.g., a consortium) as a vehicle for enabling dialogue and collaboration among diverse and geographically dispersed individuals and institutions with a shared identity around innovating learning systems for sustainability. To be led by Alexander and Kathia Laszlo. - 4. Systems Science and Systems Engineering
- The general idea is to build a bridge to systems engineers to introduce more systems thinking into this discipline.
A short report on the Pernegg Conversation can be found in the IFSR Newsletter, No. 27 (to appear soon). A more detailed report will be issued with the proceedings of the Conversation (around September 2010)