System Dynamics Society
Minutes of the Policy Council Meeting Summer 2011
July 24, 2011
Washington, DC
In Attendance: David Lane, David Ford, Rogelio Oliva, Andreas Größler, Ignacio Martínez-Moyano, Markus Schwaninger, Etiënne Rouwette, Birgit Kopainsky, Burcu Tan, Martin Schaffernicht, Len Malczynski, Peter Hovmand, Kim Warren, Allyson Beall, David Andersen, Jay Forrester, Bob Eberlein, Susan Howick, Brad Morrison, Roberta Spencer, Brian Dangerfield, Michael Kennedy, Christina Spencer, Peter Milling, Stefan Groesser, Nicole Zimmermann, Jürgen Strohhecker, Silvia Ulli-Beer, Karan Khosla, Dean Christensen, Aldo Zagonel, Ricardo Matos Chaim, Erik Pruyt, Imrana Umar, David Lounsbury, Yaman Barlas, Khalid Saeed, George Richardson, Inge Bleijenbergh, Jim Duggan
1. Welcome and Introductions
President David Lane called the meeting to order and asked that we begin by joining in a moment of silence in support of the people of Norway.
David Lane welcomed the new members of the Policy Council for 2011: Allyson Beall, Peter Hovmand, Len Malczynski, Markus Schwaninger, Burcu Tan, and David Ford as President Elect.
He also thanked the retiring Policy Council members and officers, Enzo Bivona, Burak Güneralp, Imrana Umar, Joel Rahn, and Erling Moxnes, for their excellent service.
2. Review the electronic votes since the 2011 Winter PC Meeting:
a. Appointment of Jürgen Strohhecker to the Nominating Committee for the term August 2011 through July 2014.
b. Formation of a Special Interest Group for Conflict, Defense and Security.
3. Vice Presidential Reports - Presentation, Discussion, and Announcements
Online Reports are available, so the Vice Presidents highlighted some important items.
a. Publications: (Graham Russel and Brian Dangerfield) Graham referred to the online report and highlighted some key items about the System Dynamics Review. There was a 24% increase in downloads of articles in 2010 compared to 2009. He noted that much traffic on the journal website comes through Google. They have been building the number of institutions with access to the Review; now more than 3,000 institutions have electronic access. There has been an increase in people getting table of contents alert emails, which is clickable through to download and is counted as a hit. This increases the value as perceived by librarians. There is a healthy queue for material coming in. The Impact Factor has dropped a bit since the 50-year issue. Graham and they believe the journal offers better value for money than before. David Lane asked for some comparables, and Graham said 24% growth in downloads was strong.
Brian Dangerfield, VP Publications, also reported. The accepted backlog currently stands on the order of 1 to 2 issues worth of articles, which is down a bit because the new, bigger page count allows for more articles. The acceptance rate was just over 33% (and has never been more than 40%). The Impact Factor (ISI Web of Science - 1 yr impact factor) went down to .667 for 2010 from .738 for 2009 as a result of an alarming drop in citations. In 2010, there were only two citations to papers published in 2009. The 5-year impact factor has gone up to a record 1.586. Brian speculated that there may be a ceiling on the impact factor for a journal based on one methodology, so perhaps we should compare our ratings to those of other similarly specialized journals (such as in forecasting). Also, SDR does not publish many review articles. It would be good to have more, because review articles often get cited.
b. Chapter Activities: (Martin Schaffernicht) Most chapters have responded with reports, but some have not. Martin is working on establishing good communication between the Society and the chapters. The Chapter Capacity Development Fund has received one serious application from the Brazilian chapter that has requested funding to partially support using an international expert to deliver a special training program within Brazil. The proposal raises questions about who qualifies as an appropriate expert in such situations and how we can support the program financially. In general, there are many strong chapters. Martin expressed some concern about the viability of the Russian chapter due to dwindling membership, but some members will be attending the current conference and will give Martin an update. There is one Chapter proposal coming from Latvia.
c. E-Presence: (Bob Eberlein) We desperately need to update our website and hope to get that done in fall. The wiki is inactive. Bob will move some content from the wiki to the website. The discussion forum is going well. Bob will put up session reports from the conference and may start discussion on some formulation issues. We are still looking for a webmaster. David Ford suggested we offer an incentive for this job - either a conference fee waiver or a discount on annual membership fees. Bob and Roberta have plans to talk about possibly hiring a professional, but details are not clear.
d. Finance: (David Andersen) The System Dynamics Society is a 501c3 corp in Massachusetts and has a contract with the University of Albany to pay for home office operations. Jim Thomson and Jim Lyneis have done yeoman’s work as an ad hoc investment committee to examine and improve how we manage our investments. We have just under $800,000 to manage. We budgeted several items to come from investment earnings - e.g., Meadows Award and Forrester Award. We are also looking at the total amount of work in home office so as to not overburden the staff. All of operations of the home office are overseen by the Administrative Committee. The Investment Subcommittee recommended a set of reserve goals, including a $50K emergency reserve fund, reserve in case home office needs to move, funds for awards, and the field development fund. We don’t have the money to do those things now. David remains concerned that the development fund might launch new initiatives that place more demands on home office, which is already working essentially at full capacity. We have made only minor adjustments since January. David Lane noted that the Society has stated its willingness to fund some chapter development activities, but the Society is not wading in cash.
e. Meetings: (Andreas Grossler)
i. 2011: Roberta Spencer reported that here in Washington, DC, we have over 520 registrations, comparable in number to the 2005 conference in Boston. We have a full program, with repeat items as well as new events (e.g., Ribbon Event for job or resource networking, Fireside Chat with Jay). It appears that the conference will meet the budgeted profit objectives. We have had great cooperation from the hotel, the organizing committee, and the program chairs. We generated sponsorship amounts of $80 - $100K, which effectively subsidizes conference fees in the overall conference budget.
Yaman Barlas asked if we are offering more student scholarships. Roberta said the rate for students is already subsidized. Also, we award some scholarships. Students can also work as volunteers to get their registration fee waived.
ii. 2012: Markus Schwaninger reported that the 2012 conference will be in St. Gallen, Switzerland. There will be a presentation, with many pictures, in Tuesday’s plenary session. We will try to make local cultural context very apparent. The infrastructure and technology are in place. The university has very generously donated the rooms and technology. David Lane and Elke Husemann will be the program chairs. We have raised about $140K in sponsorship, but this is not enough because the dollar is low compared to the Swiss franc. We want to keep conference fees are low. Registrations are expected to be between 300-450, targeting 400. We should pay attention to travel concerns, because the conference ends the day before the Olympics.
iii. 2013: Andreas reported that this will be the first conference held under the default location policy. It will be at the Hyatt Regency Cambridge hotel on July 24 - 28, 2013.
iv. 2014: This will be the first European conference under the default location policy. We do not yet have a location. There are four chapters that might provide conference organizing support: Switzerland (at University in Zurich); The Netherlands (at a hotel location near The Hague), Germany in Frankfurt, and the UK. We had much discussion about the search for a default location. Rogelio Oliva commented that the current approach to conference organizing relies heavily on a local organizing team and suggested that we consider hiring professional organizers for the conference. Eric Pruyt indicated that The Netherlands (Benelux Chapter) might be willing to host a conference, but they are not sure they want to commit to being a default location. He suggested that there could be some cooperation among the various big groups in Europe. Brian asked that we clarify that program chairs do not have to come from the local area of the conference. George Richardson (program co-chair of the current conference) said that they could have done the program chair job from anywhere. Susan Howick expressed concern that the default in Europe might discourage other submissions. Len Malczynski asked about our experience with the Hyatt. Roberta said that this conference in the Hyatt has gone well, and the Hyatt is able to support us well.
We noted that the business models for hotel conferences in Europe (e.g., guarantee rooms and pay for meeting space) are quite different from those in the US. Many successful conferences in Europe have been at universities. Jürgen Strohhecker said he has called some hotels in Frankfurt. They seem responsive to the idea of doing a conference on a recurring basis and may be willing to change the model a bit to give free conference rooms with sufficient commitments for sleeping rooms and catering. Birgit Kopainsky has called a few locations in Zurich, and they too are responsive to the idea of a repeated event.
George suggested that we continue feeding these great ideas to Andreas and Roberta, the people who are thinking about this all the time. Andreas said he would like feedback on the idea of rotating the European location among several sites, a “rotation within the rotation” model.
f. Member Activities: (Etiënne Rouwette) Etienne reviewed the duties of VP Member Activities. One project is an initiative to learn more about how new members decide to come to Society. He has been planning to hold a focus group, but that has not taken place yet. Second, Etiënne has contacted each of the SIGs and asked them to fill out a report. So far, the Psychology SIG has responded, and eight others have not. He needs to reestablish communication with them.
Etiënne is working on a special project to develop a repository of cases. Our website currently displays content that is mostly about the method, so the idea is to generate some recent cases about the helpful use of system dynamics in real world situations. He has recruited a student to help. They have identified 453 cases from the SD bibliography and culled the list down to about 25 that meet three criteria: fairly recent; did something for real client; has been published; and is based on a full model. They hope to get 17-18 cases. All members are encouraged to send in half-page descriptions of cases that might be suitable. Len asked if we could add a field in the endnote bibliography to make filtering to find cases easier. Bob Eberlein (VP E-Presence) and George Richardson (VP Publications) both said that was a good idea. Jay Forrester said he thought there was superior work that is not getting revealed due to confidentiality.
g. Executive Director: The Society is generally in good health. We have a new contract with Wiley Blackwell and a new contract with U Albany. We have new web-based initiatives and a new default conference policy. More members are choosing to get SDR electronically. Only 4% took SDR electronically in 2006, but in 2010 more than 30% did so. Membership renewals have been strong, with a 74% carry over from year to year. Product sales were down. The bibliography is now being maintained in house. Investments are being handled according to policy. Sponsorship is strong. Conference management, which requires working on three conferences simultaneously, takes a lot of the home office time.
4. Committee Reports- Presentation, Discussion and Announcements
STANDING COMMITTEES
a. Administrative Committee: (Peter Milling) The Society has investment guidelines, although there are no formal policies, just a framework for how to do investments. The Committee talked extensively about the home office workload, which is at 100% of capacity. There is no room for more work. We need to hire a new CPA. We renewed the contract with the University of Albany with a multiple year contract. The Committee reviewed and discussed the proposed budget. Peter explained that the idea for chapter development is an experiment to fund some projects but we must make sure that such projects do not increase the home office workload. The Committee also raised some long-term questions: How do we make income and outflow match in the long term future? What happens if the home office would have to leave the University of Albany?
David Anderson thanked the Administrative Committee for their work.
b. Awards Committee: (Khalid Saeed) We need to fill two vacancies on the Awards Committee. The Committee has not met at this conference but will meet on Tuesday. The report is posted. The agenda for Tuesday’s meeting includes discussing a Lifetime Achievement Award, which has been ad hoc. A suggestion was made to create a Fellowship category of members, so committee will also discuss this idea.
c. Nominating Committee: (Rogelio Oliva) The Nominating Committee serves from PC meeting to PV meeting, so the new terms start now. Rogelio as Past President becomes the Chair, and David Ford as President Elect joins the Committee. Dave Lane asked that people suggest nominees (including self-nominees) to the Committee members.
d. Organization and Bylaws Committee: (Brad Morrison) The Committee has been reconstituted to include Brad Morrison (Chair), Bob Eberlein, and Roberta Spencer. The ongoing role for the committee is to make sure the Policy Council acts in a manner consistent with the bylaws and policies, in particular by calling attention to discrepancies as they occur. The Committee is also doing a project to update the documentation of the bylaws and policies to make them consistent with current practices. We will end up with a set of new bylaws and policies to supersede the old ones. Their first review of the bylaws is complete, and the goal is to have the set ready for next year at the St. Gallen Policy Council meeting, which will then be followed by an electronic vote of the general membership to adopt the updated bylaws.
e. Publications Committee: (George Richardson) George is serving out the duration of the term and will be in the VP job until 2014. The other members serve staggered three year terms. Andy Ford has one year remaining. Rogelio Oliva has two years remaining. Etiënne Rouwette has three years remaining. The website has Brian’s report and Graham’s report. One thing to think about is the increasing importance of bibliometrics - e.g., impact factor = number of citations to articles divided by the number of articles. The editorial staff works very hard trying to make the metrics as good as possible. Publishing papers that people want to cite has something to do with the papers people author and something to do with the selection and editorial process. To build up an impact factor we would like to be publishing papers that people want to cite.
Sometime soon the Committee will be making a recommendation about who will be Brian’s successor as Executive Editor, about the Publications Committee itself, and maybe even about the design of the SDR.
Jay says we are missing an opportunity by not having the kinds of papers that are about what is on the front page of the newspapers. George also mentioned the importance of “hits.” We authors should not be putting papers on our websites, but instead using links, because when someone accesses a paper through our personal websites, there is no record. There should be an easy way to get papers that way, but George has tried it and it doesn’t quite work as it should.
f. Strategy Committee: (David Lane) At the winter PC meeting, we concluded that the Strategy Committee was not working. The President does not have time to be the chair of this committee. We need to think better about how to do this.
g. Organization of the Society: The Committee will meet during conference.
AD HOC COMMITTEES
h. Conference Scholarship: (Bob Eberlein) We gave out 10 conference scholarships. We were oversubscribed, with good applicants. About 2/3 of the applicants are students.
i. Diversity: (Peter Hovmand and Inge Bleijenbergh) The Committee would like to do another survey to understand diversity issues. Membership has been showing a slight increase in women and a slight increase in younger people.
Peter Milling asked about diversity with regards to attendance at the conference by people from Asia. Peter Hovmand noted that the default conference location policy may have some impact on diversity, so we need to pay attention to what effects this may have. George notes that as Program Chairs they paid attention to diversity with regards to gender and where people were from.
j. Education, Outreach and Public Understanding(EOPU) Committee: There was a live report, but the printed report is online. David Lane said the report included some good ideas and hoped that some could get done. He cautioned about the report’s suggestion to do a professional certification.
k. Society Program Oversight Committee (SPOC): (Rogelio Oliva) The previous committee structure had the previous program chair as the committee chair, but this was not working. Rogelio is now chair for a three-year term. Responsibilities of the committee begin with debriefing of this conference and then passing on lessons to next year’s conference chairs. The Committee will also propose the program chairs for approval by the Policy Council. The Organization and Bylaws Committee will suggest that SPOC becomes a Standing Committee in the updated bylaws.
l. Society’s Investment Committee: (David Andersen, Jim Thompson) The Committee tried to clarify accounting practices and develop investment guidelines for VP Finance and business managers to follow. They wanted guidelines that provide clear instructions without overly specifying. They propose that we account for investment income and accumulate it, designating specific funds, and that we do account for changes in the value of the portfolio but do not make up for them in the operating budget. We do not need another standing committee for this role. The Investment Committee is now structured as an advisor to VP Finance and the home office.
5. Call for Additions to the Agenda or Announcements
Chapter Development Fund discussion
Strategy Committee discussion
6. Motions/Action Items
a. Approval of Minutes of Winter 2011. Moved by Rogelio Oliva; seconded by Len Malczinsky. Motion passed.
b. Approval of Standing Committee members appointed by the President:
i. Administrative Committee (2012-2014) Jim Thompson
ii. Awards Committee (2012-2014) Krys Stave, Mark Paich
Moved by David Ford, Seconded by Etienne Rouwette. Motion passed.
c. David Lane announced the slate of candidates to take office on January 1, 2012.
d. Motion to approve the budget from VP Finance Report. Moved by David Andersen, seconded by Bob Eberlein. Motion passed.
e. Motion to disband the Hellenic and Pakistan Chapters. Moved by Martin Schaffernicht, seconded by Birgit Kopainsky. Motion to amend the motion to convert these Chapters to inactive status. Moved by Jim Thompson, seconded by Inge Bleijenbergh. Bob Eberlein noted that such status is not allowed by the bylaws. Following discussion, Jim Thompson withdrew his amendment. It was the sense of the meeting that the message to these chapters regarding the disenfranchised status as per the Policies should be a kind one. After further discussion, Martin Schaffernicht withdrew his motion.
7. Discussion Items:
a. Etiënne Rouwette noted that we now have a Business SIG for which we have no way of contacting the leadership. Etiënne will follow up.
b. The website now has a spreadsheet outlining the Duties of Officers. Officers should review this spreadsheet and keep it up to date.
c. The Society Strategy Committee is composed of the President, Past President, President elect, the next President Elect, Kim Warren, Jim Thompson, and Erling Moxnes. They will meet on Tuesday and take up the issue of how to make the strategy committee work. George reported that he had asked a few people if they might be interested using Society strategy as a case for their students and was encouraged to follow up to see if anyone was interested.
d. David Lane announced that SD Lapel Badges are available for $5 from Student Chapter.
8. Adjournment:
Motion to adjourn. Moved by Bob Eberlein, seconded by Rogelio Oliva. Motion passed.
Recorded by Secretary Brad Morrison.