IFSR Newsletter, 1981, No. 1, Autumn
This will be a regular feature as IFSR maintains contact with the Institute of Applied Systems Analysis at Laxenburg at several levels. At the time of writing the big news is that the successor to Dr. Levien (who in his 6 years tenure has achieved worldwide renown for the Institute and its work) has been appointed. He is Professor C.S. Hollings who hails from Canada and who has had a distinguished career teaching and researching in the universities of Berkeley and British Columbia and has been consultant ecologist with the Ford Foundation. His main interest has been in developing two streams of activity — one the fundamental study of ecological systems and processes, and one concentrating on application and policy analysis from which the focus of his IIASA research is emerging. He expects initially to concentrate on developing a methodology to express the property of resilience, going on to illuminate the principles of resilience, and finally, on the basis of the conceptual analysis, to develop a policy and planning framework that can give recognition to the resilience of systems. He will become Director of IIASA on 1 December 1981 for a three year term.
A seminar on ”Global Models” took place at Laxenberg on 10th to 18th September 1981. The comprehen9ive briefing strongly focused on purposiveness and refinement — logical and mathematical — including a list of searching questions asking the model makers to defend the practical aid his model provides to particular decisions by its validity and resilience.
The report of a similar seminar on “Innovation” is expected to be available in print (Pergamon, Oxford).
A 225 page report “Energy in a Finite World” dealing with the essence of IIASA’s “Energy Project”, which may be consi- clered the most comprehensive integrated effort Laxenberg has put forward so far, by Ballinger Publishing Company, Cambridge (Mass.) An “Executive Summary” condensing the basics and conclusions (with the aid of numerous colour diagrams into the narrow compass of a mere 60 pages) is available from IIASA, 2361 Laxenberg, Austria.
