With the latest round of UN climate talks underway in Durban this week, many are rightly concerned about the agreements that will be reached (if any), and whether it will be a case of too little, too late (quite probably). The challenges of achieving global public policy consensus aside, new research is highlighting a range [...]
Archive for the ‘Reports and Studies’ Category
Climate change adaptation, resilience and complexity
Posted in Climate change, Innovation, Public Policy, Reports and Studies, Resilience, Strategy on December 1, 2011 | 2 Comments »
What Does The Atlas of Economic Complexity Mean for Development?
Posted in Climate change, Economics, Evolution, Financial crisis, Innovation, Networks, Public Policy, Reports and Studies, Resilience, Technology, Trade on November 3, 2011 | 9 Comments »
Ricardo Hausmann of Harvard and Cesar Hidalgo of MIT (whose work I have blogged about previously here) have just published the deeply impressive Atlas of Economic Complexity. It is built around an innovative, network-based methodology for understanding economies and their potential for growth. It represents perhaps the most systematic and in-depth application of the ideas [...]
The Complexity of Scaling Up
Posted in Accountability, Evaluation, Evolution, Healthcare, Innovation, Leadership, Malaria, Public Policy, Reports and Studies, Strategy on October 3, 2011 | 4 Comments »
Despite increased prominence and funding of global health initiatives, attempts to scale up health services in developing countries are failing, with serious implications for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. A new paper argues that a key first step is to get a more realistic understanding of health systems, using the lens of complex adaptive systems. [...]
The Humpty-Dumpty Problem
Posted in Biology, Evolution, Innovation, Knowledge and learning, Networks, Reports and Studies on June 23, 2011 | 1 Comment »
The latest issue of American Scientist features some superb reflections by Robert L Dorit on the limitations of reductionist thinking in the biological sciences. They have clear parallels for social sciences and, by extension, for social policy. Selected extracts are below. Despite Descartes’ contention that we could not distinguish a well-made automaton of an ape from an actual ape [...]
Reflections on a workshop – exploring ‘complexity sciences’ in development
Posted in Knowledge and learning, Meetings, Reports and Studies on June 15, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Following on from the recent UK Collaborative on Development Sciences (UKCDS) workshop on complexity science and international development, I shared some thoughts on the day and the ways forward. This is a cross-post from the UKCDS website. Last month the UK Collaborative for Development Sciences held a workshop to explore the potential of complexity science for international [...]
New ODI Working Paper on ‘Taking Responsibility for Complexity’
Posted in Knowledge and learning, Public Policy, Reports and Studies on June 6, 2011 | 2 Comments »
Last week saw the publication of a new ODI working paper on the implications of complexity for development agencies. In his latest paper, Harry Jones examines the role of information and knowledge in improving results and ways of working. The first half of the paper focuses on ways in which readers can determine the nature [...]
Philippines turns to complexity science to strengthen disaster preparedness
Posted in Climate change, Innovation, Institutions, Knowledge and learning, Natural disasters, Networks, Public Policy, Reports and Studies, Resilience, Strategy on March 15, 2011 | 3 Comments »
Following the Japanese earthquake, the Philippines government have announced plans to explore the use of complexity science in better understanding disaster vulnerability and risk. The effort is to be taken forward by the Congressional Commission on Science Technology and Engineering, in collaboration with the Philippine Disaster Science Management Center. Senator Edgardo Angara, Chair of Congressional Commission [...]
Can Grand Challenges disrupt economic orthodoxies?
Posted in Biology, Economics, Evolution, Innovation, Public Policy, Reports and Studies on November 30, 2010 | 1 Comment »
In October, the US National Science Foundation put out a Grand Challenge asking economists and social scientists to draw up “grand challenge questions that are both foundational and transformative”. Respondents to the 2020 challenge were asked to look forward 10-20 years, explain the challenges ahead and propose a strategy for addressing them. The wording of the [...]
One for all of us aid researchers…
Posted in Reports and Studies on October 5, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
H/t Michael Keizer
History on the edge of chaos
Posted in Chaos, Financial crisis, Knowledge and learning, Public Policy, Reports and Studies, Strategy on September 14, 2010 | 9 Comments »
Earlier this year, renowned historian Niall Ferguson authored a piece in Foreign Affairs which presented human civilisations as complex adaptive systems, in contrast with the traditional view of civilisations as moving through a gradual cyclical of growth and decline. As Ferguson argues, the cyclical model of civilisations has been long shared by historians, political theorists, anthropologists, [...]
