On the afternoon of November 8, The Department of Public Administration specially invited Mr. RUAN Bo, an alumnus of our school to give an academic lecture on System thinking and structure optimization of grass-roots governance system and capacity - qualitative and quantitative research based on system dynamics in meeting Room 1010, Block A of Economy & Management Building.
Dr. WANG Hengshan, former dean of the business school (USST-BS), some faculties of the Department of Public Administration, and more than 20 postgraduates attended the lecture. The lecture was presided by Dr. ZHU Shuicheng.
At the beginning of the lecture, Dr. ZHU Shuicheng warmly welcomed Dr. WANG Hengshan and Mr. RUAN Bo, explained the practical and theoretical significance of the lecture theme, and invited Dr. WANG Hengshan to introduce Mr. RUAN Bo, who is a classmate of Dr. WANG in the time of being a postgraduate majoring in system engineering in Shanghai Institute of Machinery.
Mr. WANG Hengshan expressed great interest in Mr. RUAN Bo's keynote speech, and introduced the history of developing system dynamics as a discipline in our school as well as Mr. RUAN Bo's resume. The faculties and students in the presence learned in detail the long history and unique advantages of the discipline of system dynamics for the first time.
Mr. RUAN Bo gave a keynote speech in three dimensions: system thinking, structure analysis, and dynamic optimization. First, Mr. RUAN Bo explained the relationship between community governance and system dynamics. Entitled as an excellent alumnus of the Department of System Dynamics of our school, keeping attending to social development, Mr. RUAN Bo has gradually developed system concepts and methods to analyze and solve the social phenomena and real-life problems in operation and management in China and foreign countries. Mr. RUAN Bo believes that the system engineering, which is originated from the macro thinking, is expected to be applied appropriately in the micro areas and rejuvenated in the new era.
In the early time of system dynamics development, although many quantitative modeling methods were studied, there has been no particular breakthroughs in the standardization of solving practical problems. It is always the case that the resulting parameters are dimensionless scalars, and projects became a repetition of tedious job working in a case-by-case manner. Now that system dynamics methods have been upgraded and improved, they should be useful and enable multiple applications and exert significant influence in the micro systems involving multiple stakeholders.
Then, Mr. RUAN Bo explained in detail the system dynamics model of community governance. Finally, Mr. RUAN Bo summarized various practical problems in grass-roots community governance in which he has been involved in recent years. Moreover, Mr. RUAN Bo proposed four academic ideas or directions worth further study or exploration. The faculties and students were deeply inspired.
After Mr. RUAN's keynote speech, Dr. WANG Hengshan, Dr. ZHU Shuicheng, and Dr. XIE Yuan talked about their thoughts and enlightenment on the keynote lecture respectively. Everyone agreed that the interdisciplinary research and development of public administration discipline and system dynamics discipline can be expected and hoped to obtain more fruitful results in the future.
The lecture vividly explained the vitality and vigor of the interdisciplinary integration. In addition, this lecture has broadened the research vision for the faculties and students. The lecture finally was concluded as a full success.
Welcome Speech by Mr. ZHU Shuicheng
Mr. WANG Hengshan's speech
Mr. RUAN Bo's lecture
Translator: CHEN Yanting
Reviewer: ZHOU Huijun
