PROJECTS
The activities of the Research Program are intended to advance interdisciplinary social science, both theory and practice. Our primary interest is the effect of ideas on society and the creation and diffusion of ideas that, if widely adopted, we believe will have a beneficial impact on society. We are currently working on several projects. We host visiting professors from the former Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia under several programs sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. These scholars improve their knowledge of the Western literature in their fields and become familiar with American teaching methods. We also introduce them to process improvement methods and group facilitation methods, since we believe these methods will help them in introducing changes in their home universities. The theoretical and philosophical perspective underlying our activities is systems theory and cybernetics. The Research Program conducts fundamental research in these fields and serves as the home office of the American Society for Cybernetics.
We arrange a University Seminar in Complex Systems. Stuart Umpleby teaches a course on Managing Complex Systems. [Description] [Syllabus] We use group facilitation methods in our work. We find that these methods are very effective in helping people to do planning and problem-solving. We teach and use quality improvement methods. In particular we have developed the method of Quality Improvement Priority Matrices. From 1997 to 2000 we operated a listserve; we created a website; and we arranged panel discussions, briefings, and conferences on the year 2000 computer crisis. Most of the panel discussions were held at The Washington Post Company. One conference was supported by the Nathan Cummings Foundation. The GW School of Business and the School of International Affairs supported some events. |