“Innovation and Optimization in Nature and Design” was the topic of #ISSS2018, the 62nd Annual Meeting of the International Society for the Systems Science (ISSS) which took place at the College of Engineering of the Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon, United States from 22nd to 27th of July 2018.
BCSSS Managing Director Stefan Blachfellner participated at the #ISSS2018 furthermore in his function as General Secretary of International Foundation for Systems Research (IFSR).
Stefan held Chair of several highly interesting sessions at #ISSS2018 and gave a lecture on “Opportunities and Limits of an Eco-Systems View beyond Socio-Ecological Systems”. He examined the opportunities and limits of the application of eco-systems theory and epistemology beyond the domain of Socio-Ecological Systems and Human Ecology as a research field. His insights originate from the successful application of the eco-systems view in a two-year policy consulting project “to Co-Create an Effective European Digital Multimodal Transport System” in his role as Special Adviser to the European Commissioner for Transport and Mobility and a follow up critical self-assessment of the epistemology applied and its achievable results.
His presentation included an overview of the origin of the terminology and the historic development of the epistemology and concepts, the mutual influences of systems theory and eco-systems theory from biology to social science and engineering, and its current wide spread use in governance theory and innovation theory, as innovation and governance have been the two phenomena addressed in the application of systems thinking to realize complex socio-eco-techno-systems.