Professor Stuart Umpleby is one of the originators of "second order science," an effort to expand the conception of science in the direction of a more holistic point of view. His work has been described as a contribution to the unification of science. Dr. Stuart Umpleby is Professor Emeritus in the School of Business at George Washington University, Washington, DC. He is a past president of the American Society for Cybernetics and Associate Editor of the journal Cybernetics and Systems. He is currently president of the Executive Committee of the International Academy for Systems and Cybernetics Sciences, an honor society created by the International Federation for Systems Research.

Professor Tatiana Medvedeva is a Professor in the Department of World Economy and Law at Siberian State University of Transport, Novosibirsk, Russia. At her university, she is a former Director of the Scientific and Practical Center for Business and Management. She uses group facilitation methods in teaching and consulting with managers of Russian enterprises. She has also worked as Vice-director of the Institute for Prospective Transport Technologies. On two occasions she was a visiting scholar at Georgetown University and George Washington University in Washington, DC. She received a diploma in economic cybernetics from Novosibirsk State University, a kandidatskaya degree (Ph.D) and a doctorate degree (Dr.Sc.) in economics from Moscow State University. Most of her scientific writings concern the economics of transitions and change management, including the changes in values, beliefs, and institutions now occurring in the post-communist countries. She has published papers in several systems and cybernetics journals and made presentations at conferences in East and West Europe, Russia, and the USA.

The International Academy for Systems and Cybernetic Sciences is an honor society for people who have made outstanding contributions to the fields of systems and cybernetics. It was created in 2010 by the International Federation for Systems Research. Two other organizations -- the European Union for Systemics and the World Organization for Systems and Cybernetics are now also involved. The Academy reviews nominations of scholars and elects some of them as academicians.

The Academy is not just an honor society. The academicians seek to advance the field through contributions to encyclopedias and handbooks, educational programs and lectures at conferences. Lately we have begun thinking about projects that require a multi-disciplinary perspective, where people with trans-disciplinary competence could be particularly helpful in aiding communication among specialists. This presentation will describe a few projects that are currently being considered.

The field of macro-economics would benefit from more use of reflexivity theory. Macro-economics uses primarily open loop influence diagrams with independent and dependent variables. There have been some experiments with agent-based models but few closed loop influence models. Although common in ecology, closed loop influence diagrams have not been widely used in macro-economics to analyze the stability or instability of economic systems. A stable system would have mostly negative feedback loops. An unstable system would have mostly positive feedback loops. In the U.S. in the 1990s a change in legislation followed by financial innovations changed a stable system into an unstable system resulting in the financial crisis of 2007 to 2008. Closed loop influence diagrams, if they had been used, could have warned of instability.

Can the present conception of science be expanded in order to more adequately encompass social systems? What assumptions have scientists been making that could be modified in order to incorporate in science purposeful systems as well as inanimate objects and designed systems as well as natural systems? The desire to remain objective has led many social scientists to neglect the role of observers who decide how a system should be described and which approach to analysis should be used. Also, in social systems theories often change the phenomenon observed. The evolution of political and economic systems are examples.

There are a growing number of participatory methods used to include subjects in the class of experimenters and experimenters in the class of subjects. Participation in social systems requires reflexive thinking since human beings are both objects of research and observers of systems. Do our current conceptions of scientific research provide adequate instruction for research on reflexive systems? Numerous methods have been developed for leading participatory conversations for planning, problem-solving, or negotiating. The systems sciences can be helpful to the traditional sciences when transdisciplinary research is required.