Membership of the network:

... Membership of the network grew out of the associated networks of the Open University Systems Discipline and the Department of Computing and Information Systems at De Montfort University (Milton Keynes campus). Membership is open to anyone with an interest in SPMC aims. To join, contact SPMC via Monica Shelley on 01908 655070, email: m.a.shelley@open.ac.uk.

The Open University Systems Discipline:

The OU Systems Discipline has behind it 25 years of applied systems research, scholarship and teaching in a number of domains; bio-systems, agricultural systems, organisations, the systems practitioner as well as systems theory. It has acquired and maintained an expertise in using systems approaches embedded in a second-order cybernetic model of systems practice in which the role of the observer, or systems practitioner, is explicitly recognised. This has led to the development of models of systems practice that address the issues of braiding systems theory and systems practice to facilitate the emergence of new forms of theory and new forms of practice.

As well as the core discipline of Systems, the Open University has an internal network of participants in this network who also work in the fields of applied systems. This includes university members in several diverse Departments as well as the wider group of systems practitioners represented by the Systems Associate Lecturer group and the Open University Systems Society. The Open University Systems Discipline is part of the Centre for Complexity and Change at the Open University.

International contributors include:

Professor Richard Bawden, Distinguished Visiting Professor, Michigan State University and Emeritus Professor of Systemic Development, University of Western Sydney, Australia.

Professor Brenda Gourley, Vice Chancellor, The Open University, UK.

Professor Janice Jiggins, Researcher, Communicatie en Innovatie Studie Leerstoel Groep, Wageningen University and Research Centre, the Netherlands.

Professor Rob Taylor, Director of the Leadership Centre, University of Natal, South Africa