Combatting COVID-19 has moved on. Now is the pleasant task of planning to roll out the vaccines! Thousands of analysts are struggling right now to solve this with spreadsheets, but this is another local challenge best-handled with a dynamic model, like the one offered by Strategy Dynamics at http://sdl.re/VaccineRolloutDemo. This demo explains the purpose of the local COVID-19 vaccine roll-out model and how it works. Give it a try and share it with anyone who could use it
Just launched! … a 4-week competition – yes, with prizes! – for any upper-school or University teams to answer for their chosen area – city, town, region – “Lockdown-2 – how deep, how long?”
Teams will follow the simple classes in the COVID-19 modelling course then use the localisable COVID-19 model to explain how the outbreak has progressed in their area, assess the impact lockdown-2 needs to have on contact-rates, then estimate how the outbreak may progress from there – trying to avoid a 3rd wave.
In March in response to what seemed to be a big gap in the Government’s strategy. We founded The Covid 19 Localisation Modelling. We are a volunteer organisation with about 100 contributors with multidisciplinary expertise. We have created this course so young people can learn about Covid 19 and how to manage it in Local areas. We believe it is very important to get young people involved so we created a free online course to teach young people how to model the outbreak in local areas. Localisation is very important because living conditions and the progress of the viral outbreak are very different in every neighbourhood: St Johns Wood vs Hackney; Finchley is vs Chelsea; Ealing vs Marylebone — all different. And that extends across the UK: Bristol vs Manchester; Birmingham vs York, Brighton vs Hull, etc — all different. Because of this we believe each local can reap big benefits from having its own localised strategy.
The complication is while Government can declare lockdowns, the effectiveness is only as good as the compliance and here in the UK compliance is, well, bad. The most difficult cases are areas where people simply do not have the resources to stick to lockdowns, that is genuinely tragic because as we have seen the BAME communities have been most affected, partly because of the need to keep generating income and this puts them in harm’s way. Less upsetting but equally difficult is, frankly, people are getting weary of lockdowns and all the restrictions, especially young people. We have analysed this in detail in dozens of locations including London and young people circulating more freely is a major contributor to why we have surge in cases now and why we are in a lockdown.
What can be done about this? We believe engaging young people in the debate and the analysis instead of just dictating to them. The evidence is this is a very powerful lever for positive change: we have seen it happen. We have been working constantly on an initiative to help young people understand what is happening with Covid 19 in local areas and have had much success internationally.
We are working with 3 student interns at MIT in Cambridge Ma USA through the MISTI and IAP programs. They are currently evaluating Covid 19 management plans and the issue of coordinating term schedules with other universities using the migration structures in our model. They will be working on scale up and AI/Machine Learning later.
We have been working with other students in Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, Greece, Dominican Republic, Haiti and many cities in the USA.
A notable exception has been in the UK. Although are engaged extensively with the NHS Analyst community and we have worked with a handful of students here in the UK we have not succeeded in scaling up the way we think would really make a big difference.
We want to try to change that so we have launched a UK Covid 19 Lockdown challenge for young people last weekend. The competition runs for 4 weeks in step with the lockdown and will be judged by a panel of experts. Prizes are being awarded for the best analysis in two age groups: Secondary school age and post-Secondary School age up to 24.
University of Glasgow – MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit (SPHSU)
Applications are invited for the above PhD studentship. SPHSU has a strong focus on developing and using cutting-edge methods to understand how social, behavioural, economic, political and environmental factors influence health and wellbeing. The studentship is aligned to the work of the multidisciplinary Systems science In Public Health and Health Economics Research Consortium (SIPHER), and will benefit from the academic and practice networks this brings. The Scottish Government, a SIPHER policy partner, is one of a group of Wellbeing Economy Governments, committed to create a robust, resilient wellbeing economy. This three-year PhD project will use participatory and system dynamics modelling to provide insight into the likely synergies and trade-offs involved with alternative political strategies designed to move towards that goal, with a particular focus on population health and health inequality outcomes.
You will have a first degree in a relevant, quantitative discipline, as well as a Masters degree (or equivalent experience) that has provided you with relevant technical modelling expertise (e.g. economics, operational research, computer science, transport, sustainability, infectious disease, population health science). Your primary supervisor will be Professor Petra Meier, with other SPHSU or SIPHER staff as appropriate to the successful candidate’s interests and skills.
Application deadline: 9 October 2020.
Further details: Advert for the studentship. Please carefully check eligibility criteria (only UK residents can get the stipend due to funders’ rules)
A team of simulation modellers, supported by disease experts, has created an easy-to-use model of COVID-19 outbreaks. It can be ‘localised’ to any defined region, to answer basic questions:
What is happening around here?
How might the outbreak play out?
How can the future be best-managed?
The developers want to ‘democratise’ COVID policy by putting this model in the hands of millions of citizens, especially young people, so that anyone can answer those questions. A short online course at
designed by young people who actually used the model for their communities – explains basic epidemic principles and how to use the model. Please take a look and if you think it could be useful, please share it, tweet it, Facebook it …
has been calibrated to a wide range of localities –
from cities like Jakarta and New York to smaller towns to city-slums and their surrounding regions.
is totally transparent – every item is shown as time charts and every element can be seen and checked.
The developers are working with Foundations, NGOs, Healthcare Organisations, Governments and Commercial organisations to complement other pandemic-strategy efforts and understand issues relating to local areas that national models can’t address.
Systems Thinking is the blog of the Systems Unit in the Cabinet Office. The Systems Unit wants to help people across the public sector apply systems thinking to complex problems. To find out more about how the team is exploring this approach to improve people’s lives visit https://systemsthinking.blog.gov.uk/
UCL Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering
28 May 2020
UCL are accepting applications for a funded PhD studentship aiming to support collaborative and system-wide decision-making, with a focus on organisation studies, sustainability and health in the built environment. Global uncertainties such as climate change pose complex challenges for the urban built environment, environmental sustainability and people’s health. Ill-designed strategies frequently cause unintended consequences. A multiplicity of interdependencies makes decision-making on the urban built environment highly complex. Existing models and tools are inadequate to deal with such complexity. This project will help transform decision-making in the urban built environment towards a more collaborative and system-wide approach.
Applications welcomed until 18 June 2020. As the studentship primarily targets European students, you need to comment on your eligibility to the studentship in your application.
On the morning of the 28th May the UK Chapter of the SD Society held an AGM with a difference by turning it into an opportunity to showcase modelling work in support of COVID-19 responses. After a brief demonstration of how a stock and flow model provides a natural basis for the spread of a virus, over 80 participants in the online session were introduced to three examples of applied SD modelling in the context of COVID-19. Speakers:
Kim Warren, Strategy Dynamics Ltd;
Mark Gregson, Consultant with the Whole Systems Partnership;
Erik Pruyt, Center for Policy Exploration Analysis and Simulation in the Netherlands.
On April 2nd this year, the chapter held a very successful online conference, replacing the two-day one that had been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Although we were disappointed not to hold the Glasgow meeting this year, the good news is that next years’ conference will be at the same venue: Strathclyde University on 25-26th March 2021. We look forward to seeing you next year in Glasgow.
Outstanding Contribution Award
At the 2020 conference, Kim Warren was awarded for his outstanding contribution to system dynamics in the United Kingdom.
Kim Warren is an experienced strategy professional, teacher and writer. He has held senior strategy roles in business and academic positions at the London Business school for over 20 years, teaching on MBA and Executive programmes.
On the morning of the 28th May the UK Chapter of the SD Society held an AGM with a difference by turning it into an opportunity to showcase modeling work in support of COVID-19 responses. After a brief demonstration of how a stock and flow model provides a natural basis for the spread of a virus, over 80 participants in the online session were introduced to three examples of applied SD modelling in the context of COVID-19. The talks took us from Manilla, via the garden of England in Kent down the Greenwich Meridian (roughly) to Namibia and then to Peru!
In each case the presenters described the rapid adoption of SD modelling to support decision making, highlighting the importance of local models that pick up both the distinctive nature of demographics and the policies open to leaders. Other themes to emerge included the highly sensitive nature of epidemic models, particularly in the early stages of spread and when the precise characteristics relating to infectivity and spread and novel, which made it vital to use an approach such as system dynamics in which there is the opportunity for rapid iteration of model versions and the transparency of model structure and behaviour to ensure engagement of key decision makers.
The talks are now available below along with pdf copies of the presentation material.
Kim Warren, Strategy Dynamics Ltd. Local outbreaks and local issues need local models. SLIDES
Mark Gregson, Whole Systems Partnership. Reflections on developing a whole system demand and capacity model for an Integrated Health and Care System in the UK. SLIDES
Erik Pruyt, Center for Policy Exploration Analysis and Simulation in the Netherlands, Aggregated Systems Models towards Integrated Assessment Models linking COVID19 Epidemics, Economics, Livelihood across National, Regional and Local Scales: the Cases of Namibia, the Netherlands, and Peru. SLIDES
The event will briefly describe how system dynamics is suited to the modelling of an epidemic and a generic approach that will be reflected in three key contributions:
Kim Warren, Strategy Dynamics Ltd, will describe his work with Maurice Glucksman with the Pan-African Network for Rapid Research, Response & Preparedness for Infectious Diseases Epidemic (PANDORA) entitled Local outbreaks and local issues need local models.
Mark Gregson, Consultant with the Whole Systems Partnership, will outline his work in the Kent & Medway system entitled Reflections on developing a whole system demand and capacity model for an Integrated Health and Care System in the UK.
Erik Pruyt, Center for Policy Exploration Analysis and Simulation in the Netherlands, will speak on Aggregated Systems Models towards Integrated Assessment Models linking COVID19 Epidemics, Economics, Livelihood across National, Regional and Local Scales: the Cases of Namibia, the Netherlands, and Peru.
On April 2nd this year, the chapter held a very successful online conference, replacing the two-day one that had been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The slides and videos for this online conference are now available:
If you want to revisit the talks you heard, or, if you missed our meeting, watch for the first time, please use the above link to access the YouTube videos.
Although we were disappointed not to hold the Glasgow meeting this year, the good news is that next years’ conference will be at the same venue: Strathclyde University on 25-26th March 2021. We look forward to seeing you next year in Glasgow.
