IFSR Newsletter 2001 Vol. 20 No. 1 September
Zhichang Zhu
It is my pleasure to report to the International Federation for Systems Research (IFSR) that its research grant to a research project ‘Systems East and West’ has generated robust activities and recognisable outcomes in the international systems community and beyond, which can be summarised as follows.
The grant has helped to initiate and organise two international conferences with systems research as the core and cross-cultural learning as the theme: (a) the International Symposium on Knowledge and Systems Sciences: Challenges to Complexity, Ishikawa, Japan, 25-27 September 2000, (b) the International Symposium on Knowledge and Systems Sciences, Dalian, China, 25-27 September 2001. In the proceedings of both conferences, the financial support from the IFSR is warmly acknowledged.
The grant has successfully pulled financial resources from other institutes to support cross-cultural systems research. One concrete example is my three-months research visit in 2001 at the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology that is fully sponsored by the Institute. Similar research visits for other systems researchers are under negotiation and preparation.
The grant has helped to maintain an on-going cross-cultural systems research project between China, Japan and the UK, a project that began in 1993. Research activities and outcomes of the project, in the forms of international conferences, research papers and project reports, etc., are documented in a research report that is published in the IFRS official journal, Systems Research and Behavioural Science, vol. 18, no. 5.
Overall, the above evidence shows that the IFSR grant has been effectively utilised and widely publicised. I would like to take this opportunity to extend my gratitude to the IFRS for its generous encouragement and support.
Zhichang Zhu
The University of Hull Business School
Hull, HU6 7RX
z.zhu@hull.ac.uk
IFSR Newsletter 2001 Vol. 20 No. 1 September
