Systems Approaches to Research and Practice

Science and technology are studied, utilized, and deployed in complex and uncertain environments, and impacts are not always predictable, given multiple feedback loops and unexpected behavior. However, by understanding systems, policies can be targeted towards underlying, embedded, and structural problems, rather than individual decisions or specific interactions that often provide only temporary remedies to problems. Yet systems approaches in S&T policy are challenging: social, cultural, natural-world, and technological elements interact to impact societies and diverse sub-systems intersect. The 2014 Gordon Research Conference on Science and Technology Policy will address the challenges and opportunities associated with systems approaches to research in S&T Policy. It will provide a unique forum to advance the study of ST policy systems (scholarship) and use of this knowledge to innovate in the public policy domain (practice).

The meeting will be inclusive of topical areas in S&T policy (e.g. energy systems, natural resource systems, education systems, ICT systems, innovation systems, governance systems, intellectual property systems, security systems); ways to study systems (e.g. network analysis, system dynamics, socio-technical approaches, econometric, mental modeling, STS, ethical analysis); and disciplinary perspectives (e.g. natural science, engineering, economics, policy studies, sociology, anthropology, STS, psychology, decision science, environmental science, regulatory science, risk analysis). Morning sessions will focus on more fundamental issues in systems research in order to advance the general study of S&T policy systems, and evening sessions will explore topical areas to actively engage the participants in dialogue and illustrate controversial and cutting-edge issues in S&T policy. The collegial atmosphere of this Conference, with discussion sessions and opportunities for informal gatherings in the afternoons, provides an avenue for scholars from different disciplines to brainstorm and promotes cross-disciplinary collaborations in the various research areas represented.

Anyone is welcome to apply to attend the GRC and submit a poster abstract. Nominations for GRC speakers should be sent to the Co-Chairs of the GRC. The 2014 GRC will also offer a Gordon Research Seminar (GRS), which will be held immediately preceding the GRC on Science and Technology Policy (August 9-10, 2014). Junior investigators, such as students, postdocs, and trainees, are encouraged to attend both the GRC and GRS, and to submit abstracts for presentations and posters to the GRS.