As part of our 20th anniversary the Chapter Policy Council decided to introduce a new annual Outstanding Contribution award.
This award recognises those who have supported the development of the field of System Dynamics in the UK and/or have contributed their time and energy to supporting the activities of the UK Chapter
The recipient of the award is decided by the Policy Council of the UK Chapter.
2020 Recipient
Kim Warren
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. He has held visiting positions at several international academic institutions and has written over twenty publications and books.
Initially graduating with a BSc in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College London, he subsequently obtained an MBA and a PhD in Strategic Management at the London Business School. In 2005, he won the prestigious Jay Wright Forrester Award for his book Competitive Strategy Dynamics.
Kim has been actively involved in Systems Dynamics for many years. He served on the policy council of the UK chapter of the System Dynamics Society from 2007 to 2011, becoming president in his last year. He has presented over twelve times at the chapter conference. He was president of the International System Dynamics Society in 2013, serving on its policy council for five years. Kim has been director of Strategy Dynamics Ltd since 1994 and has taught numerous practitioners using his Sysdea software, an innovative tool for agile SD model development. His introduction to system dynamics continues to be a popular feature of the UK Chapter conference.
Kim has asked us to reproduce his thanks for receiving this award:
Dear UK-Chapter members.
I was so surprised by the Award that I totally forgot to say something very important. Not only has it been a great pleasure knowing and working with the great people in the UK Chapter over past years, you all have taught me so much too.
To start with, it’s all John Morecroft’s fault that I got into system dynamics at all 🤗 – thanks John. And rather than risk leaving anyone out of the long, long list of people I have learned from over the years, including newcomers to the field, please just consider yourself duly thanked.
Best wishes to all in these difficult times.
Kim
2019 Recipient
Eric Wolstenholme
Eric Wolstenholme is a leading expert in System Dynamics, author of two books with another close to publication. He is a past President of the International System Dynamics Society and the UK Chapter, the founding editor of System Dynamics Review, and received the Jay Wright Forrester Award in 2004 for his seminal work on generic system archetypes.
Having trained as a mining engineer, Eric worked in operations research for the Coal Board, then to academia, Bradford University, with professorships at Stirling, Leeds Beckett, and South Bank. He forged links with the System Dynamics community in the US, including JW Forrester and Barry Richmond, and was an early adopter of Stella/iThink software. He was organiser and chair of International System Dynamics Conference, Stirling 1994.
Eric had a parallel career in consulting, founding Cognitus and Symmetric (via OLM); many Chapter members had their first experience of modelling under his tutelage.
A quote from a colleague: “You never come away from a conversation with Eric without having learned something new and interesting.”
A quote from Eric: “I use system dynamics when the devil’s in the interconnections rather than the detail.”
2018 Recipients
John Morecroft
John Morecroft is a leading expert in strategic modelling and system dynamics and has co-edited three books and published a widely used system dynamics textbook, Strategic Modelling and Business Dynamics.
John is a Past President of the International Society and one of its Founding Members. He is a recipient of the Jay Wright Forrester Award.
He has led applied research projects for international organisations including Royal Dutch/Shell, AT&T, BBC World Service, Cummins Engine Company, Ford of Europe, Harley-Davidson, Ericsson, McKinsey & Co and Mars.
He has taught system dynamics, problem structuring and strategy in MBA, PhD and Executive Education programmes.
Instrumental in forming the UK Chapter, former President of the UK Chapter and presented over 8 times at UK chapter events, students have been past recipients of the student award
Brian Dangerfield
Department of Management, University of Bristol
Brian’s main research interest is in the application of system dynamics simulation models to policy-level issues in economics, business, health and public policy generally.
He has had many publications in the fields of OR and SD. In 1991 he was awarded the President’s medal of the OR society for a paper (jointly authored) on SD modelling of the consequences of the spread of HIV and AIDS. In 2005 he was awarded the OR society’s Goodeve medal for a joint paper on SD applied to health service modelling.
He was co-editor of the book ‘Discrete-event simulation and system dynamics for management decision-making’.
From 2002-2011 he was the Executive Editor of the System Dynamics Review and is the Section Editor for System Dynamics in the Encyclopaedia of Complexity & Systems Science.
Past President of the Economics Chapter of the International SD Society.
Presented at over 8 UK Chapter events, the first of which was in 1996 and most recently last year, past President of the UK Chapter, students have been past recipients of the student award