INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR APPLIED SYSTEMS ANALYSIS (IIASA)
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(1) |
| ID | ◀ 1758 ▶ |
| Object type | General information |
M.C. JACKSON describes Template:Ency entity as follows: “In 1972 the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Template:Ency entity), a nongovernmental interdisciplinary research institution, was set up in Laxenburg (Austria), on the initiative of the academies of science (or equivalent institutions) of 12 nations. This Institute has been seeking to apply RAND-style systems analysis to major world problems related to, for example, energy, food supply and the environment… ”According to the Template:Ency entity “handbooks”, Systems Analysis aims to help public and private decision makers to resolve problems arising in complex sociotechnical systems.
- “It brings to bear the tools of modern science and technology, searching for regularities in system behavior and to provide evidence about the costs, benefits, and other consequences of various possible responses to the problem at hand…
- “The methodology of systems analysis can be seen as consisting of seven major steps, as follows:
- Formulating the problem
- Identifying, designing and screening alternative responses
- Building and using models for predicting the consequences of adopting particular responses
- Comparing and ranking alternative responses
- Evaluating the analysis
- Decision and implementation
- Evaluating the outcome“ (1992, p.76).
This methodology seems to have been oriented basically to technical systems planning, without participation of many stakeholders (notably people personally interested in the issues and politicians).
As a result, and very unfortunately, Template:Ency entity studies had scant impact on concrete complex issues from 1972 on.