Vickers Award -- Cancun 2005
The 49th Annual Meeting of the International Society for the Systems Sciences
July 1st - 5th 2005
Cancun, Mexico
The Sir Geoffrey Vickers Memorial Award
In memory of the humanistic vision of Sir Geoffrey Vickers and his deep commitment to, and belief in, the power of young people to contribute creatively to the betterment of the human condition, a plaque and check for $500 will be awarded for the best student paper. The Award recognizes outstanding work done in the domain of the systems sciences, and is considered the most prestigious prize in the field at the pre-doctoral level. The competition takes place only once a year, and is open to all students from any country. Only student authored papers are eligible for consideration, and preference will be given to individually authored work. A single outstanding paper will be selected each year (only on rare occasions will the Award be split between two winners). The winning paper will be presented in a General Plenary Session at the conference. At the time of paper submission, please indicate if your paper is to be considered for the Vickers Award and certify that this work was performed while you were a student. (You may have since received your degree).
The Award commemorates the life and works of Sir Geoffrey Vickers. His view of the human condition as fundamentally embedded in a web of value relations, and of the dilemma of human action as both rational and valuative, lead him to the formulation of the Appreciative Systems approach. The spirit of his lifework is tremendously contemporary, even though he wrote his most significant works in the early second half of the 20th century: society as evolutionarily emergent; participative and interactive communication as a creative agent; humanization as the necessary normative component of socialization - all this as part of what he called "a science of human ecology." It is through a truly integrative and systemic approach to our humanity that Sir Geoffrey believed we can learn to navigate multi-valued choice in the ways we structure and value our situation. Being critical (without criticizing), judging (without being judgmental), and engaging in normative decision taking (without ignoring or subjugating the interests of others) - these are the challenges of a science of human ecology as he saw it. The realization that "Science is human" derives from his assertion that we are "incorrigible valuers." Indeed, it was Sir Geoffrey's fundamental affirmation that only by learning to be appreciative systems, ourselves, will we create social structures capable of supporting the essence of our humanity. The ISSS Vickers Award seeks to recognize promising work that advances the systems sciences toward this vision.
