Cyber-systemic conference in Vienna and ASC in Asilomar in July

Note from Ranulph Glanville:

The EMCSR (European Meeting on Cybernetics and Systems Research) conference series was founded in 1972. At the last meeting in 2010, Robert Trappl, who had chaired it since its beginning, retired. The new chair, Wolfgang Hofkirchner, who directs the Bertalanffy Archive in Vienna, has just published the outline program for next spring's conference.

There are changes in how the conference will be run. For instance, round table discussions are welcome. There will be a pre and post doc colloquium. There are new symposia and symposium chairs. And the process for submission and publication is different, with extended abstracts for proposals, and papers written in final form after the conference, for publication.

Please note the symposia (look under programme >> symposia). Apart from symposium E, chaired by Karl Mueller and myself, there are other symposia that cover a wide range of different approaches and areas.

I invite you all to have a look at the programme and, if you find the conference interesting, exciting and/or relevant, to make arrangements to be there. Check out the web site: http://www.emcsr.net.  Vienna is lovely in mid-April.

At the same time, let me advise you of the American Society for Cybernetics' conference, 9 to 13 July, at Asilomar State Park Conference Centre, California, to be held in conjunction with the Bateson Idea Group. This promises to be a richly interesting event, and will remind us that there many sources of today's cybernetics, and many ways forward. This conference is in the week before the ISSS conference at San Jose: we are planing a special, reduced rate for those attending both. The conference web site will be launched in the new year, and will be accessible through the ASC home page, http://www.asc-cybernetics.org