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These reports were presented at the 2012 Summer Policy Council Meeting and are listed alphabetically by the last name of the reporter. Reports are Acrobat (.pdf) files and can be read using Acrobat Reader available from http://www.adobe.com. Supporting material may be provided.
Andersen, David VP Finance Report (2011 was a good year financially for the System Dynamics Society. We posted a net income of $98,113 and our overall equity grew from $815,616 at the opening of our fiscal year to $901,031 at the close of the fiscal year. In terms of financial activities this year, we have switched to a new CPA after many years with the same firm and we are trying to streamline our annual reporting processes to the Policy Council. Our budget for 2013 projects a loss in Net Ordinary Income of $49,346. However, I have budgeted for an expected Investment Income of $49,729 so that our overall Net Income will be a gain of $382. The Society’s budget for 2013 has three line items being supported with investment income—(1) Awards (Dana Meadows and Forrester), (2) the PhD Luncheon, and (3) Chapter Development Fund. These three lines in the budget come to $23,900 out of our investment income. ) Report
Cavana, Robert 2nd Progress Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Organization of the System Dynamics Society (Progress report covering the work of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Organization of the System Dynamics Society since the last SDS Policy Council Meeting. Report & recommendations for discussion at Summer PC meeting at St Gallen.) Report
Eberlein, Robert Report of the Organization and Bylaws Committee (The Society membership has been informed of the intended change in the Bylaws and these will be discussed during the Business meeting. Following that, assuming there are no suggested changes from the membership, we will hold an electronic vote to adopt them in October. The recommended Policies will then be put forward for approval during the 2013 Winter Policy Council meeting. There is a current motion from the SPOC to change a Policy that uses wording identical to that in the recommended Policies. The recommended Bylaws are attached as the report document and the recommended Policies as Supplementary Material.) Report Supporting
Eberlein, Robert Report of the Society Program Oversight Committee (The Society Program Oversight Committee (SPOC) recommends that it be reconstituted as a Standing committee with a set of guidelines adopted for its ongoing function. To this end 3 motions are being made for the 2012 Summer Policy Council meeting: 1) That, consistent with the recommendation of the Organization and Bylaws committee, the Society’s Policies be modified to make the SPOC a standing committee; 2) That six members with staggered terms be appointed to the SPOC; 3) That the ISDC program guidelines (in Supplementary Material) be adopted and the SPOC be asked to maintain and update them. ) Report Supporting
Eberlein, Robert Report of the Vice President Electronic Presence (We have moved the main website to a content management system (Wordpress). The new site, using the visual format from the conference site, contains the key pages that are frequently updated with links back to older pages for less used portions. Many of these will be incorporated into the new content management format though some, such as conference proceedings, will continue to be presented as static pages. We, continue to make changes to the web submission system (soon to be renamed as the Web Portal). A subdomain has been added for tools in conjunction with a forthcoming publication in the SDR.) Report
Ford, David Agenda in Progress for July 22, 2012 Policy Council Meeting (The PC meeting will start at 11 AM. The tentative plan is to break for lunch at the same time as the PhD Colloquium, so that we can join them for lunch. More details will be available in advance of the meeting and printed in the schedule.) Report
Ford, David Education, Outreach, and Public Understanding Ad Hoc Committee (See report.) Report
Ford, David Strategy Committee, System Dynamics Society, Report for the Summer Policy Council Meeting (The committee has developed a draft strategy and plans to submit it for wider feedback and approval by the Policy Council as soon as possible. ) Report
Groessler, Andreas Report VP Meetings (Organisation and planning for the 2012 and 2013 conferences running smoothly under the excellent guidance of our home office. Thus, my report addresses the issue of finding a West European default conference site, starting from 2014 and to be held there every other year.) Report
Homer, Jack Report from the Forrester Award Committee (1. The JWF Award for 2012 will be presented in St. Gallen on July 24th. 2. It is our understanding that the award for Lifetime Achievement may normally be given only in a year when the JWF Award is not given. In the deliberations of the committee this year, we identified at least three deserving senior individuals, and some concern was expressed that with the rules as they are we may never get around to giving those individuals an award, if in most years a JWF award is given. The committee would appreciate PC guidance on this question. 3. It was decided last year that the committee chair would become a one-year position, rotating among the committee members, and changing at the annual conference. The Chair for 2011-2012 has been Jack Homer. The Chair for 2012-2013 will be decided when the committee meets in St. Gallen on July 23rd. 4. At the PC's urging, we have established staggered terms of service for the five person committee, with the possibility of term renewal if desired. The terms were set based on length of service to date. ) Report
Hovmand, Peter Diversity Committee Report (This report provides an overview of the System Dynamics Society demographics for 2011 membership and Diversity Committee activities. Total membership increased from 1067 members in 2010 to 1125 in 2011. Overall, the reporting of demographic information remained high at 89%. Moreover, updated information on member demographics continued to improve demographic estimates for prior years. Results using revised estimates show a steady increase in the percentage of women, from 11.8% in 2004 when the Diversity Committee was first formed to 17.5% in 2011, while the age distribution has remained relatively stable. However, student membership appears to be declining from a peak of 21.3% in 2007 to 17.8% in 2011. A social network analysis study of the System Dynamics Society membership is proposed for 2012-2013 to better understand the relationships between the existing social networks and the diversity of the field.) Report
Lane, David Report from the Community Service awards Committee (The Committee's purpose is to designate award winners for exceptional service. A winner has been identified for 2012. Other issues are: confirmation of ToR, agreement on terms of office for non ex-officio members, appropriateness of 'non-disclosure' approach to award.) Report
Martinez-Moyano, Ignacio 2013 Conference Report - Cambridge, Massachusetts (Please find the 2013 Call for Papers for the Cambridge, Massachusetts USA conference. The dates are July 21 – 25, 2013.) Report
Oliva, Rogelio Report from the Chair of the Nominations Committee (There was no activity to report from the Nominations Committee since the last report submitted for the Winter PC meeting.)
Oliva, Rogelio Report from Executive Editor of System Dynamics Review (This report is structured in four sections and represents the summary of activities since January 1, 2012 when I accepted the position as Executive Editor.) Report
Rahn, R. Joel Dana Meadows Award Committee Report - Summer Policy Council 2012 (The Dana Meadows Award 2012 There were 40 papers nominated for the 2012 Award of which 7 remained for evaluation after withdrawals, rejections and disqualifications. After some vigorous discussion, the Committee chose two winners, a student at M.I.T. and a student at Delft University of Technology. Details will be announced at the Conference in St Gallen. Joel Rahn, Chairman Dana Meadows Award Committee) Report
Richardson, George Report of the Publications Committee and the VP for Publications (Report of the activities of the Publications Committee for 2011-2012. See also the Reports by the Executive Editor of the Review and the publisher, Wiley-Blackwell.) Report
Rouwette, Etiënne Annual report Health policy (By Erik Pruyt (SIG representative2010-2011) and Wayne Wakeland (VP).) Report
Rouwette, Etiënne Report VP Member services, Policy Council Meeting Summer 2012 (Since the 2011 Winter Policy Council Meeting there are two initiatives to report on: 1. the initiative to strengthen the links with Chapters and Special Interest Groups (SIGs) and 2. the case repository. ) Report
Rouwette, Etiënne Annual report 2012 Energy (By Isaac Dyner and Stian Blackstad Hackett) Report
Rouwette, Etiënne Annual report 2012 Conflict defence security (SIG: Conflict, Defense, and Security Year: 2010-2011) Report
Rouwette, Etiënne Annual report 2012 Environmental (SIG activities for 2012 were limited, in part because of a lack of people in leadership positions for the SIG (no meeting was held at the DC conference). The SIG implemented the CarbonNeutral program during the DC conference. The SIG also gave a scholarship to David Keith (MIT) for his paper “Understanding Innovation Diffusion in the Presence of Supply Constraints and Price Feedback: The Case of the Toyota Prius” at the DC conference, and plans to award two scholarships during the St. Gallen conference.) Report Supporting
Rouwette, Etiënne Annual report 2012 Psychology (By David Lounsbury (Co-Chair) and Ralph Levine, PhD (Co-Chair).) Report
Rouwette, Etiënne VP Member services report appendix summary SIG reports (This text summarizes the 2012 annual reports of the SIGs. The format for the annual report has a number of sections not included here: publications, relations with other societies or institutions, support required. See the full reports for these sections. ) Report
Rouwette, Etiënne Annual report 2012 Biomedical (By Jim Rogers and Ed Gallaher. The Biomedical SIG was officially created on Feb 3, 2012, and we look forward to its growth and development for many years to come. We thank the members of the Policy Council for their recognition and support.) Report
Russel, Graham Report of the Publisher of the System Dynamics Review ([full report attached] In 2011 (besides the 'traditional' institutional subscriptions) SDR reached over 3700 libraries worldwide through Wiley's licensed sales program (up from just under 3500 last time). In addition, Wiley's participation in various philanthropic initiatives made sure that SDR was also available for free or at very low cost in nearly 6000 institutions in the developing world. SDR’s readership in emerging markets continues to increase: full-text downloads of SDR in China rose by 49% in 2011, and readership of the journal in India was up by 60%. We saw overall a 14% increase in SDR’s readership, with SDR articles being downloaded more than 46,000 times during the year. The new 2011 Impact Factors have also just been released. SDR now stands at 0.867, up again on last year's number of 0.667 (and one of the journal’s best ever). SDR is now 25th out of 45 titles in the ‘Social Sciences, Mathematical Methods’ category (compared to 42nd out of 43 last time); and is 108th out of 166 titles in the ‘Management’ category (110th out of 144 last year). ) Report
Saeed, Khalid Report of Awards Committee (No new business was deliberated since last meeting in July 2012. The report addresses disposal of issues from the last meeting.) Report
Schaffernicht, Martin VP Chapters Report (The report summarizes the individual chapters' reports and status of their web- sites. In then compares the current situation with past year and concludes that there are different types of chapters. It proposes criteria for recognizing new Chapters. Then the Chapters and SIGs membership is analyzed to show how they intersect. SIGs have a much higher membership, but there are specific differences between Chapters and SIGs. It is proposed that we should monitor and manage Chapters and SIGs in a unified manner, taking into account 3 axes: geographical/language, theme/interest and type of activity. VPs Member services and PV Chapters should conjointly study the matter and work out a proposal for the next PC meeting.) Report Supporting
Schaffernicht, Martin Material for Motion 101 (recognition of Canadian Chapter) (In Canada, a group of system dynamicists has undertaken the effort to launch a Canadian Chapter. The founding officers are • President: Randy Park (Partner, Lighthouse Nine Group) • Vicepresident: Al Vahid Esensoy (PhD candidate, U. of Toronto) • Secretary: Tim Kelly (PhD student, Simon Fraser University) • Society Liaison: Sahrah Boyer (Consultant) The proposed new constitution complies with the Society’s rules. 12 full members in good standing have declared their adherence to the chapter. This is a motivated group of individuals including longstanding members of the Society, combining university presence and practitioners. The existence of a Chapter in Canada can be the opportunity to reinforce their local community and to strengthen the discipline in North America. Therefore I submit the motion to recognize the Canadian Chapter. ) Report Supporting
Spencer, Roberta First PC Submission Test (First PC Submission TestFirst PC Submission TestFirst PC Submission TestFirst PC Submission Test) Report
Spencer, Roberta Annual Report on Home Office Operations for Fiscal Year 2011 (See full Annual Report on Home Office Operations for Fiscal Year 2011 ) Report
Spencer, Roberta 2012 Conference Report (As of July 5: We have 546 total submissions, with a 23.38% rejection rate; there are 430 registrations with 39% of registrants self-reporting that this is their first System Dynamics Society conference. For more details, please see full report.) Report
Warren, Kim Early Draft Report of the Strategy study for the field (Early in 2012, David Ford requested development of a strategy for the Society to take the field forward. This is a partial and highly 'Draft' report on the process, findings and possible implications of the work. ) Report
Warren, Kim Version 2 of the Strategy report (This is an updated version of the report on findings from the Strategy review conducted during January to July 2012. Changes from version 1 reflect observations and suggestions made, mostly by the Strategy Committee, but also by a small number of others. The report only goes so far as to identify possible implications for action by various groups in the Society that could contribute to accelerating development of the field - these require further evaluation and debate, so do not yet constitute recommendations. ) Report
Zagonel, Aldo Capacity Development Fund: Reflecting on the Brazilian Workshops (This report is based upon my personal experience, championing and helping to organize and carry out two workshops delivered in Brazil, one of which was partially funded by the Society (US$4,000). The first part of the report (attached) are my reflections and some questions. The second part is an appendix containing detailed information about each workshop (application, announcements, program, participants, pictures, budget, evaluations). Including the appendices, this is a very long report, but the reader may be satisfied simply reading my reflections and/or browsing through some of the appendices. Because of pictures and scanning of documents, the appendices are too heavy. If you are interested, I ask that you download them here: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-F3Xg6GPgGidERNZjk5Z0lNR3M/edit (MGM workshop); https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-F3Xg6GPgGiSjEzTy1aUXhBeWM/edit (Fish Banks simulation exercise).) Report Supporting
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