20 March 2012, 5.30 pm
The David Blockley lecture in System - Prof. Jonathan Rosenhead, 'Custom And Practice - Revisited'
Professor Jonathan Rosenhead will give the next David Blockely lecture in Systems on 20th March 2012.
Venue: 1.15 Lecture Theatre, Queens Building, BS8 1TR
Time: 17.45
Wine and Nibbles to follow
In 1986 my Presidential Address to the Operational Research Society was published in the Society's journal. Quite unusually (it has not happened since) it was a contested election, with the result that all 3 candidates had the opportunity of writing a 'manifesto' that was circulated to the members. Therefore it could be claimed that as President I had a mandate, and the Presidential Address was an attempt to spell it out in more detail. The paper, 'Custom and Practice', proposed 3 related priorities for the profession: to extend its client base to include community groups; to develop simpler methods that would promote participation; and to address itself to society's major problems. This talk will take a quarter-century perspective on this programme and on its degree of achievement.
JONATHAN ROSENHEAD is Professor Emeritus of Operational Research at the London School of Economics where he still teaches. His interests cover applications to health services and to development; policy analysis; community OR; the history of operational research; and robustness analysis for decision-making under uncertainty. The latter is an example of Problem Structuring Methods, to which the book by Rosenhead and Mingers, Rational Analysis for a Problematic World Revisited, is a standard introduction. His involvements with Community OR and Problem Structuring Methods both grew out of the manifesto for his (contested) election as President of ORS in 1984.
