Keith Hipel
Professor of Systems Design Engineering - University of Waterloo

An encompassing perspective on competition and cooperation is presented for multiple participants strategically interacting within societal and technological systems of systems according to their underlying value systems as they strive to reach their goals. By appreciating the reality that systems of systems are inhabited by multiple participants or agents having multiple objectives, one can adhere to adaptive and integrative decision making principles to properly design, construct, maintain, and operate systems of systems that serve the interests of stakeholders in a fair and sustainable manner throughout the systems’ life cycles. An insightful way is explained for classifying systems of systems in the world according to environmental (natural world), societal (real life), intelligent (artificial life) and integrated (mixed life) systems of systems. To examine strategic behaviour in societal systems of systems, some of the latest contributions in systems thinking techniques are discussed for advancing the paradigm of the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution including modeling value systems, taking preference uncertainty and strength of preference into account, describing how emotions can affect decision making under conflict, and tracing the evolution of a conflict from a status quo situation to a final equilibrium. A real world environmental conflict is employed to illustrate how cooperation among decision makers can produce a more preferred win/win resolution which cannot be reached when they behave independently in a purely competitive manner. In fact, tremendous opportunities abound for researchers and practitioners in systems, man and cybernetics to develop flexible smart systems tools in multiple participant-multiple objective decision making for both cooperative and independent interactive situations to tackle pressing global problems such as global warming, unemployment, globalization of trade, over-population, widespread pollution, poverty, terrorism, and proliferation of nuclear weapons, from a multidisciplinary viewpoint. Moreover, it is pointed out that universal multiple participant decision making techniques need to be developed or significantly expanded and improved for employment in many diverse kinds of systems of systems such that multi-agents’ value systems and protocols governing competitive and cooperative behaviour among agents are based upon ethical principles such as the prioritization of societal well-being, social justice, environmental protection, and sustainable development. As exemplified by the devastating tsunami of December 26, 2004 in Southern Asia, created by the undersea Sumatra-Andaman earthquake, in which more than 230,000 people died, adaptive and integrative policy and governance systems are required such that decisions can be made in real time based upon enormous amounts of data being collected over widespread areas so that appropriate remedial actions, such as large-scale evacuations of people in low-lying coastal areas, can be immediately implemented.

Keith Hipel is University Professor of Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, and is Vice President of the Academy of Sciences which is part of the Royal Society of Canada. Keith thoroughly enjoys mentoring students and is a recipient of the Distinguished Teacher Award and the Award of Excellence in Graduate Supervision from the University of Waterloo. His major research interests are the development and application of conflict resolution, multiple objective decision making and time series analysis techniques from a systems design engineering perspective. The main application areas of these decision technologies are water resources management, hydrology, environmental engineering and sustainable development. Keith is the author or co-author of 4 books, 11 edited books, more than 200 journal papers, as well as many conference and encyclopedia articles. He is Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC), Canadian Academy of Engineering (FCAE), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (FIEEE), Engineering Institute of Canada (FEIC), International Council on Systems Engineering (FINCOSE), and the American Water Resources Association (FAWRA). Keith is also a recipient of the Norbert Wiener Award from the IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics (SMC) Society, Outstanding Contribution Award from the IEEE SMC Society, Docteur Honoris Causa from Ecole Centrale de Lille, W.R. Boggess Award from AWRA, and the University of Waterloo Award for Excellence in Research,. He has held a Canada Council Killam Research Fellowship, Monbusho Kyoto University Visiting Professor Position, Stanley Vineberg Memorial Visiting Professorship, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) Research Fellowship, and Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS) Fellowship. Moreover, he is a Professional Engineer (PEng) and has carried out consulting activities with engineering firms, government agencies, and utilities in many countries. Keith is an Associate Editor of many international journals including the IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, Part A, Group Decision and Negotiation, and Systems Engineering. Finally, Keith has been privileged to serve members of the IEEE SMC Society through activities such as being an elected member of the Board of Governors for a total of nine years since 1990, Vice President of Publications (1998-1999), Chair of the Strategic Opportunities and Initiatives Committee (2004-2005), member of the Strategic Planning Task Force (2004-2005), member of the Executive Committee (2004-2005, 1998-1999), organizer of sessions on Conflict and Risk Analysis in Systems Management at all of the annual IEEE SMC Conferences since 1991, member of the IEEE SMC Fellow Selection Committee (2008, 2007, 1998, 1997), and, currently, Co-Chair of the Technical Committee on Conflict Resolution for which he jointly received the Most Active SMC Technical Committee Award (2007). On October 8, 2007, Keith delivered the opening keynote address entitled “Competition and Cooperation in Societal and Technological Systems of Systems”, at the 2007 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics held at the Delta Centre-Ville, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.