In July 2019, confirmation votes were cast for the new board of the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS), making Angelika Schanda the new VP for Membership and PR. She has taken on this new role as part of her ongoing efforts to promote systems societies as well as public awareness about systems approaches. The election took place during her journey to North America, where she visited the conferences of the American Society for Cybernetics (ASC), of the ISSS as well as the System Dynamics Society (SDS). During this journey she was able to gain new insights into the diverse communities and organizations which are concerned with systems and cybernetics.

With her new role as VP, Schanda is building on earlier awareness raising work in the field of systems. Also being responsible for Communications and PR at the BCSSS, as well as having a strong connection to the System Dynamics community, she now has the unique opportunity to help tie together the various groups further. This fortunate step forward is also possible thanks to the efforts of former VP of Membership and PR as well as president-elect Delia McNamara, who contributed to this month long journey to North America.

Schanda’s functions at BCSSS and ISSS (the latter being originally co-founded by Ludwig von Bertalanffy) are aligning with each other to create more collaboration in the field. Toward that end, she welcomes all approaches by further societies and organizations, who are interested in collaborations to promote systems approaches as a whole.

Several former presidents of the ISSS now also assume roles at the BCSSS: Alexander Laszlo, as BCSSS president; David Rousseau, Ray Ison, Gerald Midgley, Jennifer Wilby, Debora Hammond, Ervin Laszlo as BCSSS scientific council members. Furthermore, the International Federation for Systems Research (IFSR) office is located at the BCSSS’ office in Vienna, with IFSR president Ray Ison as well as BCSSS Managing Director and IFSR Secretary General Stefan Blachfellner creating a strong link. Due to the interlinkages of these boards, the appointment of Angelika Schanda at ISSS is within the natural and long-standing interest of all involved organizations.