Nov 18, 2019 | IIASA Network, South Africa, Women in Science
Mary Scholes has been serving on the IIASA Science Advisory Committee (SAC) since 2011 and was appointed as Chair in 2014. She discusses her views of SAC in this interview with Monika Bauer, IIASA Network and Alumni Officer.
Mary Scholes
Tell us about your journey as a member of SAC.
It’s been a very interesting journey for me. When I was first asked to join SAC, I declined. Over time, I found that the institute changed to look at the quality of the research in the programs, and it was at this point that I said I would become part of the committee. I soon realized that I didn’t really understand the overarching top down role that IIASA Council played.
It was very interesting. The first two to three years was a learning curve working on communicating with the IIASA Council. The institute was conducting good science, and we didn’t want that to be overlooked in any way. We re-wrote the terms of reference for SAC, focusing on the engagement between what SAC does during the year and how that is communicated to Council. From that point on, it was always on the agenda, documents were always acknowledged, and there was always follow up. It my opinion, it changed how SAC functioned.
In 2017, the institute started an institutional review process, and I represented SAC on the taskforce that was assembled to support this effort. Throughout the process, in my opinion, it came out quite clearly, that SAC needs to play a much more engaged role with the Council Program Committee, and that the Program Committee should ensure that SAC’s voice reaches the Council. In the past, there was a quite strong responsibility on the SAC Chair, to make sure the voice of the committee was heard, and this process resolved this.
What will happen next, I think, is that SAC will interact much more closely with the new Deputy Director General for Science (DDGS), who will then take the views or recommendations of SAC to Council. It would be advantageous to still have the SAC Chair invited to IIASA Council meetings to ensure information is conveyed or to answer any follow up questions. I would also suggest that SAC continues in the role of an advisory board to IIASA. I believe any good international science institution, anywhere in the world, should have an external, neutral, excellent research advisory body.
How do you see SAC developing as you step down at the end of this year?
First, that SAC continues. Second, that the Chairperson interacts frequently with the new DDGS. Third, that the DDGS communicates SAC’s feedback to Council, and to ensure that this is the voice of SAC, the Chairperson should be invited to that particular section of the Council meetings. For this, the terms of reference would however need to be revisited.
How is this different from the current situation?
At the moment, SAC is meant to only look backwards. I plan to challenge this, so that it can be raised in 2020 because, in my opinion, this is the best committee to do an independent horizon scanning exercise. Internal researchers can do a horizon scanning exercise from their perspective, and SAC add expertise from other areas and regions. Therefore, I believe SAC needs to be given the space of being retrospective as well as the space to look forward and to take those ideas to the DDG of Science.
Those are the three critical roles I think that SAC needs to take in the future. If this is done, it would greatly benefit the scientific governance of the institute.
SAC members can serve a maximum of six years. This is a good decision. A new Chairperson will be a new beginning, with these principle guidelines providing a foundation.
What do you feel are the main takeaways from SAC’s recent report to the IIASA Council?
First, SAC is very pleased about the new DDGS position, as we feel it’s important to have someone who can solely focus on driving the science agenda rather than also running the entire institution.
Second, it’s important for the strategic plan to be agile. I think the way the new strategic plan needs to be developed is probably in phases. For example, instead of designing a ten-year plan, do a three-year portion and then a five-year portion; there could also be staggered overlaps. This way the institute is much more agile while focusing on the results rather than where to allocate the budget, and it allows flexibility for the institution to change as research progresses or is completed. SAC would like to see an agile research strategy that also takes into account the fundamentals of knowledge versus what can be done with iterative machine learning.
Lastly, there was concern about the processes regarding recent changes at the institute. This is a hard issue to handle, and there are ways of potentially managing it better.
What has left the greatest impression on you during your time on SAC?
I think it’s critical how IIASA moves forward with its National Member Organizations (NMOs), how governments stay engaged, and how these relationships work in terms of a reciprocal relationship.
My experiences in South Africa have been closely tied to the Southern African Systems Analysis Centre (SASAC), an initiative organized by IIASA and the South African NMO. At the moment the program is stagnant, and we’re hoping the materials we produced for SASAC will find a new avenue for teaching a new cohort as there are absolutely wonderful examples of success stories.
After completing the three-week SASAC High-level Capacity Strengthening Program, participants would update their CVs and quickly be promoted to higher positions at various universities and institutions. Individuals from other African countries would come to South Africa because there were no opportunities in their home countries, complete the program, and then be promoted into positions at universities back home. Another example from the last course in 2017: I had 16 participants and already 13 manuscripts have been published. That’s a huge return on investment. The program really worked, and we would obviously like to see the program continue. Perhaps the gentlest way would be to have a committed postdoc come to IIASA and then go back to South Africa and drive a new program.
Mary Scholes will be stepping down as SAC Chair in December 2019 and will continue serving on the South African NMO Committee for IIASA.
Notes:
More updates from IIASA alumni or information on the IIASA network may be found here.
This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
Oct 21, 2019 | Alumni, IIASA Network, Netherlands, Systems Analysis
Leen Hordijk has served in the capacity of project leader, Council member, and director of IIASA. He is currently professor emeritus at Wageningen University and special adviser to the Competence Centre on Modeling at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC). He was recently interviewed by IIASA Network and Alumni officer, Monika Bauer.
Leen Hordijk at IIASA in 2006.
In 2007, you wrote an Options article on what systems analysis is in which you stated that systems analysis at IIASA is making an important—even essential—contribution to solving some of the world’s most complex problems. Is the role of systems analysis even more important today, and if so why?
In today’s world, it is indeed more important. First and foremost, the world is more complex than it was 20 years ago. Internet, social media, and the accessibility of transport options make the world more connected and thus more complex. Systems analysis can assist in disentangling the complexities and in trying to quantify where possible. Science is frequently under attack by interest groups, climate change deniers, and even some governments. It is therefore even more important to have an international, multidisciplinary, and multi-cultural institute like IIASA to bring scientific results to policymakers and society. Impartiality and knowledgeability are in the institute’s genes. The world notices this in scientific contributions by IIASA to policy debates in energy, biodiversity, climate change, disaster management, air quality, aging population issues, water management, and technology development.
In my personal development, IIASA has played a key role since my first visit in 1979 when I attended a regional economics conference. “IIASA gets into your blood”, as one of our sons said when I was thinking about applying for the IIASA directorship back in 2001. That is so true for many alumni.
What are your reflections on your time as IIASA Director General?
When I arrived as director in 2002, the challenge was twofold. First, I had to deal with financial issues, as two major members of IIASA had not lived up to their commitments, while expenditures had not been reduced. Second, some ten years after the end of the Cold War, the IIASA membership structure had not changed. The first problem was solved through a thorough 25% expenditure reduction plan and a re-engagement of said members. IIASA staff realized that cuts were necessary, and they were very engaged in finding solutions. The re-engagement of member countries went quickly because of the involvement of Austrian government officials, in particular Raoul Kneucker. The second issue took more time: expanding membership for IIASA to become a global institute rather than an East-West one. With China already on board when I arrived, we expanded membership with Egypt, India, Pakistan, South Africa, and the Republic of Korea.
In terms of content and scientific quality, I was very happy to find an excellent staff. What surprised me was that the number of social scientists (including economists) was higher than I had expected, and the total sum of external financing was quite low. In the following years, most programs became very successful at acquiring projects funded by the European Research Council and various Directorates-General of the European Commission.
Today, IIASA is a major player in terms of providing impartial scientific input in the analysis of many global challenges, such as energy, air quality and climate change, sustainable development, disaster risks, ecosystem services, demography, and technological transitions. IIASA is often a leading institute in signaling global trends and changes and, very importantly, uses its broad systems analytic and modeling capacity to quantify such changes and bring the results to policy fora.
In your opinion, how has the Dutch community benefited from the IIASA network?
It is always very hard to point at such benefits, because more often than not, they cannot be linked to single causes. That aside, I think that the Netherlands’ strength in systems analysis for environment, climate, and energy can, for a substantial part, be linked to leading scientists who spent time at IIASA and/or are active participants in IIASA networks. Last year I came across a nice example when I had a temporary assignment as chief scientist at PBL, the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. In that year, PBL was heavily involved in analyzing a draft national climate agreement for the Dutch government. I met two key scientists in that team who I knew as Young Scientists Summer Program (YSSP) participants during my time as director of IIASA. It was very exciting to notice how they had grown since their time as YSSPers and became essential in the PBL team.
Being part of global scientific networks, gaining experience in advanced interdisciplinary work, and, last but not least, the YSSP, are specific benefits all member countries receive from being a part of IIASA. IIASA was not founded for the benefit of single countries – it is the global good that the institute tries to understand and serve.
I have also personally benefited from being a part of the IIASA network. When I left IIASA in May 2008, I became director of the Institute for Environment and Sustainability of the JRC in Ispra, Italy. IIASA and the JRC have become close collaborators in various fields of research.
More updates from IIASA alumni or information on the IIASA network may be found here.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
Oct 15, 2019 | IIASA Network, Science and Policy, South Africa
Bettina Greenwell, communications officer at IIASA, talks to Dorsamy (Gansen) Pillay, Deputy CEO: Research and Innovation Support and Advancement (RISA), National Research Foundation (NRF), and IIASA council member for South Africa, about the NRF’s statement on ethical research and scholarly publishing practices. The statement was jointly issued in August 2019 with South African partners within the National System of Innovation (NSI) in South Africa.
Dorsamy (Gansen) Pillay, Deputy CEO: Research and Innovation Support and Advancement (RISA), National Research Foundation (NRF), and IIASA council member for South Africa
What is ethics in research and why is it so important?
Research is a quest for truth. The research must be well conceptualized with a clear research question(s) which can lead to new knowledge. Good ethics and integrity dictate that the truth must be presented in its absolute form, and the findings need to be appropriately interpreted and should be reproducible.
South Africa was awarded the right to host the 7th World Conference on Research Integrity (WCRI) in 2021 in Cape Town – the first time it will be hosted on an African continent. Why is this statement important for the science community in South Africa?
Firstly, it is a privilege to host this conference and South Africa feels very honored. The statement on ethical research and scholarly publishing practices is an important contribution to this conference. We have noticed that South African academics and researchers, especially new and emerging researchers, are under a lot of pressure to publish their work for a variety of reasons. In some instances, ethical principles have been violated. This included the dissemination of research through predatory journals. However, this was not unique to South Africa only as other countries also faced similar challenges. The NRF as a science granting foundation felt compelled to respond to this challenge. The NRF sees itself as a custodian and guardian of research ethics and integrity. Through our peer-review processes, we ensure that research proposals for funding have been robustly interrogated, and the highest ethical principles upheld. As a consequence the NRF developed and issued a joint statement on ethical research and scholarly publications in collaboration with the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI), the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), the Council on Higher Education (CHE), the Academy of science of South Africa (ASSAf), Universities South African (USAf) and the NRF. In addition, the NRF has previously issued a statement on predatory publishing.
What do you think will be the key scientific challenges to face South Africa in the next few years? And how do you envision IIASA helping South Africa to tackle these?
There are several challenges, and some of the most pressing ones are poverty and inequality, population migration and unemployment. Given the systems analysis approach, we feel we can draw on IIASA’s expertise to address these challenges. IIASA has used South Africa as a laboratory for its population studies research over several years. It is now time to ensure that this research is translated into policies so that it may impact positively on society.
Housing is also a problem in South Africa. There is a lack of decent, affordable housing for people. The new IIASA strategic plan focuses on smart cities – this could play a role in addressing these housing challenges.
IIASA’s expertise is a systems analysis approach which can be applied to complex issues. The important part of the work is when scientific results are turned into policy – that’s when there is an actual, tangible societal benefit.
South Africa has been an IIASA member since 2007. What have been the highlights of the South Africa-IIASA membership until now?
We see the South Africa IIASA membership as a partnership, and many benefits have accrued through this partnership over the past decade. An example is the Southern African Young Scientists Summer Program (SA-YSSP), which was inspired by the success of the IIASA YSSP. This program ran from 2012 to 2015, and trained the next generation of young scientists.
Another example is the Southern African Systems Analysis Centre (SASAC) initiative, which focused on expanding systems analysis expertise in Southern Africa. Both initiatives were endorsed by the South African Department of Science and Innovation.
About NRF and Dorsamy (Gansen) Pillay
As an entity of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), the NRF promotes and supports research through funding, human resource development and the provision of National Research Facilities in all fields of natural and social sciences, humanities and technology. Dr Dorsamy (Gansen) Pillay is currently the Deputy Chief Executive Officer (DCEO): Research and Innovation Support and Advancement (RISA) of the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa. His thirty-year career in research, teaching, management and leadership includes academic, management and leadership positions at the former University of Durban-Westville and at the Durban University of Technology. His research has focused on both prokaryotic and eukaryotic microorganisms, from human diseases to bacterial plant diseases with particular emphasis on elucidating the molecular architecture of the causal microorganisms with a view to understanding genetic diversity, extra-chromosomal elements and developing rapid disease diagnoses. He is currently Vice Chair of the IIASA Council.
Notes:
Please click on the link to read the statement on ethical research and scholarly publishing.
More information on IIASA and South Africa.
This article gives the views of the authors, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
Oct 1, 2019 | Alumni, IIASA Network, Systems Analysis
By Christoph E. Mandl, IIASA alumnus and Senior Lecturer at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna
Apprehensive about ever growing crises of corporate and political governance, I wrote a book titled, Managing complexity in social systems: Leverage points for policy and strategy, that addresses these crises and appropriate actions from a complex systems, system dynamics, and systems thinking perspective. The premise of the book is that more and more policies and strategies tend to fail and it is based on my personal experiences and the stories of many policymakers.
© Peshkova | Dreamstime
In her disconcerting booklet, The collapse of Western civilization: A view from the future Naomi Oreskes stated: “Analysts agree that the people of Western civilizations knew what was happening to them but were unable to stop it. Indeed, the most startling aspect of this collapse is just how much these people knew, and how unable they were to act upon what they knew.”
So, what can be done about this? How can the complexity of modern societies be managed? Naturally, answers to these questions are anything but trivial. Insights from complexity science, system dynamics, system theory, and systems thinking may not give a full answer but could perhaps point us in the right direction.
In writing my book aimed at closing these societal knowing-doing gaps, four IIASA alumni shaped and influenced my thinking:
The first was Thomas Schelling, who was key for me in showing how, in the context of segregation, a social system’s macro-behavior emerges that is quite different to the micro-motives of the individuals.
Brian Arthur’s book, Increasing returns and path dependence in the economy, revealed to me a totally new perspective on the dynamics of social systems where disequilibrium is not only possible, but normal.
Through John Sterman’s article Bathtub dynamics: Initial results of a systems thinking inventory, I understood how important the distinction between stocks and flows is for decision making in dynamic environments.
Lastly, when I first came across Donella Meadows’ article, Places to intervene in a system, its impact on me was profound. In my view, it was the first publication that addressed decision making from a strictly dynamic point of view. This article and her publication Chicken Little, Cassandra, and the real wolf, forever changed and inspired my thinking about what it means to manage and to make decisions.
Without the insights of these four outstanding IIASA alumni, my book would never have been written. Thank you, IIASA, for bringing them all to Laxenburg!
More updates from IIASA alumni or information on the IIASA network may be found here.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
Jul 26, 2019 | Environment, Systems Analysis, Young Scientists
By Luiza Toledo, IIASA Science Communication Fellow 2019
2019 YSSP participant Roope Kaaronen investigates how changes in the urban environment affect people’s behavior and whether they will find it easy to engage in sustainable behavior in different environments.
Technological and industrial advances in many sectors have made our lives easier, but they have also contributed to a less sustainable way of life. From the industrial revolution to the present day, CO2 emissions have increased by 40% and about 95% of this increase can be attributed to human actions. We can therefore say that our actions shape the environment we live in. But how does the environment we live in in turn shape our attitudes and behavior?
Apart from the vast amount of information available to us and an increasing awareness of more sustainable consumption, our society still has a growing carbon footprint, which means that attitudes around sustainability are not really translating into behavior. There is a gap between having environmental knowledge and environmental awareness, and displaying pro-environmental behavior. Apparently, the answer to translating attitudes into behavior could have more to do with design than awareness.
Roope Kaaronen, YSSP participant. © Kaaronen
Roope Kaaronen, a member of this year’s IIASA Young Scientists Summer Program (YSSP) cohort, has made it his goal to study behavior change and the adoption of sustainable habits. His project investigates how changes in the urban environment will affect people’s behavior and whether people will find it easy to engage in sustainable behavior in different environments. He is looking at how pro-environmental behavior patterns emerge from processes of social learning (such as teaching and imitation), habituation, and niche construction (a process where agents shape the environment they act in).
“I am particularly interested in how the physical environment shapes our behaviors, because people often assume that they have a pro-environmental attitude or values, and that this automatically translates into sustainable behavior. Research however shows that this is often not the case. So actually, the physical environment is more important in determining how we behave than we think,” he explains.
For instance, suppose that you would like to start recycling more but your city doesn’t have a proper selective waste collection system. Because the infrastructure needed to promote pro-environmental behavior is missing, this can lead to feelings of frustration and hopelessness, which could in turn cause people to give up on even trying to engage in the behaviors that could lead to more sustainable outcomes.
Kaaronen uses agent-based modeling in his research to model the cultural evolution of sustainable behavior patterns. The idea is to study how opportunities for action can have self-reinforcing effects on behavior. He included agents who move on a “landscape of affordances” in his model, and these agents are connected to each other in a social network. In this context, the term “agents” represents individuals or groups in society.
Social psychology describes pro-environmental behavior as conscious actions made by an individual to minimize the negative impact of human activities on the environment. For Kaaronen, this means that we can only achieve sustainable goals if we change our behaviors or habits very quickly.
“I think that it’s not realistic to expect that technology will solve all our problems. We will have to start behaving differently,” he says.
Unfortunately, people very often assume that individuals’ actions don’t have as much impact as collective actions, leading them to postpone their own pro-environmental behaviors. There have been a lot of discussion in the media around whether one person’s attitude could have an impact on the environment, in other words, should the focus be on each individual making changes in the way they live, or should the focus be on whole systems changing. To Kaaronen, these two approaches are connected.
“Systems emerge from individuals and their collective interactions. As we are social animals, our actions are inevitably copied and imitated by other people. This means that a person who has a lot of influence will have many people copying them. In other words, whenever we talk about private environmental behavior, such as recycling or using public transport rather than driving a car, we tend to think that this is just our personal behavior, but of course, our choices form part of a much bigger system,” says Kaaronen.
Woman helps clean the beach of garbage. © Freemanhan2011 | Dreamstime.com
We should be aware that we need politicians to make our pro-environmental choices as easy as possible. As individuals, we have responsibilities because we are part of the social system, but it is up to the political system to encourage this kind of behavior on a larger scale.
In 2007, the Danish government developed a strategy that prioritized bicycling as method of transport in Copenhagen. Since then, the city has seen a rapid increase in the number of people cycling, showing that affordance is important to promoting behavior change. Kaaronen’s model is able to reproduce patterns of behavior change, such as the case of Copenhagen.
“I think in terms of policy, what I am doing is quite applicable in urban design. What I am trying to show is that if we make sustainable behavior easy and lucrative, this can lead to long lasting and self-reinforcing effects on the emergence of sustainable cultures,” he comments.
The advent of social media has made it easy to influence people’s attitudes and behavior. The model that Kaaronen is using also illustrates how behavior change can spread through tightly knit social networks, and how social learning in networks can have self-reinforcing effects on behavior change. He says that we should use this tool to spread awareness about sustainable habits and initiate cultural evolution towards sustainable societies. In terms of behavior, living by example is very important, since it is necessary to show that living a sustainable life is both possible and enjoyable. Kaaronen himself lives this philosophy as he doesn’t drive and tries not to eat meat. He also stopped flying two years ago.
“I am just travelling on the ground right now. It is part of a campaign in the academic environment called #FlyingLess. Buses and trains can take you to interesting places, but it of course takes up a lot of time and I realize that not everyone can do this because they live in places that aren’t well connected.”
We are so used to unsustainable forms of behavior like constantly driving, flying, and consuming meat, but the world needs to realize that this way of living cannot last forever. It is unsustainable. Even though it may appear challenging to change our behavior, Kaaronen’s research offers hope to keep believing that it is possible to change our unsustainable behavior and achieve a sustainable society and environment.
“I think it is important to show that these things are actually possible. We can reach a tipping point towards sustainable systems if enough people just start practicing what they preach,” he concludes.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
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