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This page (and related pages) are in-process, working documents primarily for the use of conference organizers. Since there are many of us coordinating the conference, please add your name to your comments, so that we know who's adding content or making changes.

Major content includes:

• Tokyo 2007 Letter from the President - March 9, 2007
• Added July 29: Tokyo 2007 Abstracts
• Tokyo 2007 Co-Host and Conference Partners
• Tokyo 2007 Conference Announcement and Call for Participation
• Tokyo 2007 Calls for Papers including SIG Calls and Other Proposed Sessions
• Tokyo 2007 Featured Speakers
• Tokyo 2007 Registration
• Tokyo 2007 Committees
• Tokyo 2007 Important Dates
• Tokyo 2007 Planning
• Tokyo 2007 Program
• Tokyo 2007 Venue
• Tokyo 2007 Accommodation and Guided Tours (link to official travel agent site)
• Tokyo 2007 Vickers Award for Best Student Paper
• Preparing and Submitting Abstracts and Papers for ISSS Tokyo 2007
• Local Information - Offered by the Local Organizing Committee - updated July 27, 2007

(also available for download in PDF format: high-res (3.6 MB) or low-res (795 kb)

The 51st annual meeting of the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS) marks the beginning of another half-century history of interdisciplinary collaboration and synthesis of systems sciences. The ISSS is unique among systems-oriented institutions in terms of the breadth of its scope, bringing together scholars and practitioners from academic, business, government, and non-profit organizations. Based on fifty years of tremendous interdisciplinary research from the scientific study of complex systems to interactive approaches in management and community development, the 51st annual meeting of the ISSS intends to promote systems sciences as a holistic and integrated scientific enterprise.

Under the theme “Integrated Systems Sciences: Systems Thinking, Modeling and Practice”, the 51st annual meeting of the ISSS will be held in Tokyo, Japan from August 5 to 10, 2007. It attempts to promote systems sciences as an approach to complexity in a broad sense, identified in organizations, communities and societies, and their environments, in such a holistic and integrated way that we draw on all of systems sciences from systems thinking and systems modeling to systems practice.

Systems thinking promotes holism as its primary intellectual strategy for handling complexity, whether the approach is hard or soft, carried out by academia or practitioners. Instead of analyzing complex systems by breaking them down into their parts, it advocates studying them as `wholes' using systems concepts. Because Tokyo is, thankfully, a crossing point of western and eastern cultures, the meeting should provide an ideal platform for collaboration of western and oriental systems thinking.

Systems modeling aims at describing, analyzing and prescribing a real entity or phenomenon by constructing a variety of systems models. It includes mathematical models, conceptual models, computer models and simulation tools.

Finally, systems practice, or practical applications of systems thinking/ideas, is the greatest success of systems sciences in recent years. It has shown that systems sciences have the ability to translate theoretical notions into the practical domain through the use of systems methodologies, models and methods. The further refinement of these methodologies, models and methods, together with consideration of how we can use them in combination to tackle the multi-faceted problem situations, will be emphasized in this meeting. The annual meetings of the ISSS have a tradition of interaction and rich conversation, integrating provocative plenary discussions with breakout sessions organized around Special Integration Groups (SIGs) and other interactive formats for dialogue and synthesis. Along with the traditional SIGs, we encourage the participants to organize additional sessions.

Currently, we are in negotiation with possible plenary speakers for ISSS 2007 from government, industry and academia as well as NPO/NGOs. The prominent speakers are invited from inside as well as outside the ISSS. The following speakers have agreed to give a talk so far:

• “New Paradigm of Civilization in the 21st Century”, Dr. Soho Machida, Buddhist priest and Professor, Hiroshima University, Japan
• “Success Factors of Japanese Manufacturing Industry (Tentative)”, Professor Takahiro Fujimoto, Tokyo University, Japan

Although the conference will accept papers related to the following areas of research, the list is neither exclusive nor restrictive. Proposals of new sessions and tracks are very welcome. Each session chair takes the final responsibility for running his/her session. All submitted papers are encouraged to state how relevant the paper is with regard to systems thinking, systems modeling and/or systems practice.

• Systems Applications in Business & Industry
• Hierarchy Theory
• Duality Theory
• Systems Philosophy & Systems Ethics
• Systems Modeling & Simulation
• Futurism & Systems Change
• Meta-Modeling & Systems Epistemology
• Systems Psychology & Psychiatry
• Information Systems Design & Information Technology
• Research Towards General Theories of Systems
• Medical and Health Systems
• Living Systems Analysis
• Designing Educational Systems
• Spirituality and Systems
• Human Systems Inquiry
• Critical Systems Theory & Practice
• Systems Biology and Evolution
• Applied Systems & Development
• What is Life/Living
• Women and Children
• Systems Specific Technology
• Organizational Transformation & Social Change
• Systems Pathology
• Foundations of Information Systems
• Arts Based Inquiry
• Daily Roundtable - please refer to the invitation by the Roundtable Coordinator

• Aging Systems
• Agent-based Social Simulation
• Decision Systems
• Strategy Management
• Sustainable Development
• Knowledge Management
• Learning Organization
• Optimization
• Systems Complexity
• Social Systems Theory
• Chance Discovery and Meta-synthesis
• Cybernetics

In addition to paper presentations, Student SIG session, ISSS Roundtable, and Mini-Conversation will be organized. Anyone who is interested is welcome to participate in them without prior notice.

• December 5, 2006: The start of abstract submission and registration. (Please allow at least two weeks for your abstract to be reviewed.)
• February 1, 2007: The start of off-line registration.
• February 1, 2007: The start of on-line hotel reservation system.
• March 1, 2007: The deadline for panel, workshop and stream proposals.
• March 1, 2007: The priority deadline for abstract submission. (Abstracts submitted after this date and before June 1 will be considered for inclusion in the program on a space-available basis.)
• May 31, 2007: The deadline for full papers. (Late papers received after May 31, 2007 may still be accepted to the conference, but they are included on the CD-ROM proceedings for the subsequent year.)
• June 1, 2007: The deadline for abstract submission.
  

The meeting will be held at Ookayama Campus, Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech), located in the heart of Tokyo. Tokyo has excellent train and subway networks, which offer easy access to various interesting locations in Tokyo. Local attractions include traditional Japanese temples and shrines, Imperial Palace, modern high-rise buildings with latest fashion boutiques and gourmet restaurants, well-known Akihabara Electronics Quarter, and exciting nightspots in Roppongi: They are all within half-hour away from Ookayama Campus. Tokyo is certainly a crossing point of western and eastern cultures.

The conference banquet will be held on Thursday, August 9. Detailed plans will be announced later. Sightseeing tours at reasonable prices will also be organized for accompanying persons during the conference.

Registration fees are as described below:

Off-line registration will begin on February 1. (A start date for on-line registration will be announced shortly.) The fees include:

• ISSS membership fees for 2008
• A program/abstract book
• CD-ROM proceedings
• Reception on Sunday August 5
• One banquet ticket for Thursday August 9
• Lunches from Monday to Thursday

They do not cover accommodation or transportation expenses to and from the conference site. There will be an additional charge of $30 for a second paper submitted to the conference (with a maximum of two papers per person allowed).

From February 1, 2007 an on-line hotel reservation system will be ready. You will find a list of block-reserved hotels in Tokyo during the meeting period at special convention rates. You can access Ookayama Campus conveniently from these hotels by using public transportation such as railways and subways. We expect that room rates for the hotels introduced on the web page will vary between 8,000 yen to 18,000 yen per night for a single room. Transportation expenses between most hotels and the campus will be between 300 yen and 600 yen per day.

Organizing Committee
Organizing Committee Chair: Kyoichi Kijima, ISSS President 2006-2007, kijima@valdes.titech.ac.jp
Program Committee Chair: Satomi Segawa, ISSS Vice President for Membership and Conferences, satsegawa@jim.titech.ac.jp
ISSS Business Office: Jennifer Wilby, ISSS Vice President for Administration, isssoffice@dsl.pipex.com
ISSS Communications: David Ing, ISSS Vice President for Communication and Systems Education, 2005-2007, daviding@systemicbusiness.org

Local Organizing Committee
Yusuke Arai, Tokyo Institute of Technology
Hisako Chujo, Tokyo Institute of Technology
Xu Chunhui, Chiba Institute of Technology
Hiroshi Deguchi, Tokyo Institute of Technology
Pri Hermawan, Tokyo Institute of Technology
Yoshihide Horiuchi, Shibaura Institute of Technology
Takehiro Inohara, Tokyo Institute of Technology
Norimasa Kobayashi, Tokyo Institute of Technology
Hiroyuki Masuda, Tokyo Institute of Technology
Tatsuyuki Negoro, Waseda University
Shingo Takahashi, Waseda University
Takao Terano, Tokyo Institute of Technology
Ryo Sato, Tsukuba University
Naoki Shiba, Nihon University

• The 21st Century COE Program*
  "Creation of Agent-based Social Systems Sciences" established at Tokyo Institute of Technology.
  

(The 21st Century COE Program is an initiative by the Japanese Ministry of Education to cultivate a competitive academic environment among Japanese universities by giving targeted support to the creation of world-standard research and education bases (Centers of Excellence) in a range of disciplines.)

• Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS International Meeting Series)
• Research Institute of Information Technology and Management, Waseda University
• The 21st Century COE Program* “Technology Creation based on Knowledge Science” established at Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

• American Society for Cybernetics
• The DAPAD Foundation (INTERPROSTAD) ++
• International System Dynamics Society
• The Japan Association for Information Systems
• The Japan Association for Social and Economic Systems Studies
• The Japan Society for Management Information
• The Operations Research Society of Japan
• The Society of Instrument and Control Engineers

++ A registered international NPO which coordinates the present research collaboration and is lobbying to transfer the findings to African and all stakeholders decision makers.

For further and most-updated information, please consult the following websites:

• Tokyo 2007 on isss.org
• Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech)