News

Mara Airoldi and Dr Alec Morton receive ISPOR Award

Their paper "Adjusting Life for Quality or Disability: Stylistic Difference Or Substantial Dispute?" has been awarded the ISPOR Award for Excellence in Methodology in Pharmacoeconomics and Health Outcomes Research.  "ISPOR" is the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcome Research (http://www.ispor.org/).

The "award is given to a distinguished paper that advances the field of outcomes research and is expected to have a substantial impact on the field with anticipated wide acceptance and application by others".

Paper available at:

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LSE academic panelist at launch of report on how Academia and Government can collaborate

Dr Alec Morton from the Operational Research Group of the Department of Management was a panelist at the launch of the Council for Science and Technology's report "How Academia and Government can work together", hosted by the Secretary of State for DIUS, John Denham MP, and chaired by Professor Dame Janet Finch, Vice-Chancellor of Keele University. The message of the report is that academics and policy makers have a healthy level of engagement and goodwill, but more needs to be done to strengthen the relationship to ensure informed, evidence-based policy making.

Dr Morton was attending as a former Visiting Senior Fellow at the National Audit Office, on the ESRC's Placement Fellowship Scheme, and was joined on the panel by two other Fellows of the scheme, Fergus Lyons and Phillip Cowley. The aims of the Placement Fellowship Scheme are to promote knowledge transfer, the use of evidence-based policy and create networks and career development opportunities for the participants. The discussion centred on the benefits of and barriers to seconding academics into government Departments and other public bodies.

The Council for Science and Technology (CST) is the UK government's top-level independent advisory body on science and technology policy issues. CST's remit is to advise the Prime Minister and the First Ministers of Scotland and Wales on strategic issues that cut across the responsibilities of individual government departments. CST organises its work around five broad themes (research, science and society, education, science and government, and technology innovation) and takes a medium to longer term approach.

"How Academia and Government can work together" is available at www2.cst.gov.uk/cst/reports/files/academia-government.pdf.

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Dr David Lane Wins student nominated Teaching Excellence Award for System Dynamics Course

Dr David Lane (Operational Research Group and Managerial Economics & Strategy Group) has received a teaching excellence award for his course ‘System Dynamics Modelling’, after students on the Masters degrees in both Operational Research and Decision Sciences nominated him for one of only five awards given in 2007-8 by LSE’s Students’ Union.

Read full article (PDF)

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Wiley Prize in Applied Decision Analysis

Dr Gilberto Montibeller has been awarded the Wiley Prize in Applied Decision Analysis by the International Society on Multiple Criteria Decision Making. This prize is given for the best real-world application of multi-criteria decision analysis presented at the Society’s biennial conference. The winning paper was selected from shortlisted papers that were presented at the 18th International Conference on Multiple Criteria Decision Making, in Chania, Greece; and is going to appear soon in the Journal of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis.

The paper, named “Combining Scenario Planning and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis in Practice”, discusses the use of future scenarios in evaluating strategic options, when it is impossible to establish the probability of occurrence of future events. The paper then suggests possible ways of evaluating, across different scenarios, robustness & risk of such options. From this analysis, it also suggests how to design better strategies when considering multiple scenarios and multiple objectives.

Dr Montibeller is Lecturer in Decision Sciences at the LSE Operational Research Group and an expert in Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA), a methodology for supporting strategic decisions that involve multiple, often conflictive, objectives. His research interests comprise the use of MCDA for supporting decisions under risk & uncertainty and the application of the methodology for supporting real-world decisions. He has an extensive experience in applying MCDA to support organisational decision-making.

If you want to know more about Dr Montibeller’s research and activities, please see his personal webpage.

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David Lane and Elke Husemann Win Forrester Award

Taken from the System Dynamics Society NEWSLETTER Volume 20 - Number 4 October 2007:

The Jay Wright Forrester Award recognizes the author/s of the best contribution to the field of system dynamics in the preceding five years. This year the award was presented to David Lane and Elke Husemann for their winning work "Steering Away from Scylla, Falling into Charybdis: The Importance of Recognising, Simulating and Challenging Reinforcing Loops in Social Systems" published in Entscheiden in Komplexen Systemen [Decision-making in Complex Systems] in 2002. The citation and winners' speech (delivered at the award ceremony in Boston) will be published in full in the System Dynamics Review. They can be found by searching the System Dynamics Review page at Wiley InterScience for Volume 23, Issue 2-3 (Summer-Fall 2007); abstracts are available to all; full articles are only available for members.

Jac Vennix
Chair, Jay W. Forrester Award Committee

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