December 5, 2001: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
STATEMENT BY WILLIAM A. DEMBSKI ON LAUNCH OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR COMPLEXITY, INFORMATION, AND DESIGN (ISCID)
The International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design (ISCID) herewith
announces its formation and official launch. ISCID is a cross-disciplinary professional
society that investigates complex systems apart from external programmatic constraints
like materialism, naturalism, or reductionism. The society is fully web-driven
and can be reached via the Internet at http://www.iscid.org.
The society provides a forum for formulating, testing, and disseminating research on complex systems through critique, peer review, and publication. Its aim is to pursue the theoretical development, empirical application, and philosophical implications of information- and design-theoretic concepts for complex systems.
The day-to-day operation of the society centers on the archive, to which members and nonmembers may submit articles. Once uploaded onto the archive, each article has a commenting facility to which members may append comments. After three months on the archive, articles passed on by the editorial board enter the quarterly online peer-reviewed journal of the society: Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design.
In addition to the archive and journal, the society sponsors various activities
and programs. These include:
(1) A biannual conference. The first of these is planned for Oxford, summer
of 2003. The topic will be on the origin of information and will celebrate John
von Neumann's centennial.
(2) Annual essay contests. An undergraduate essay contest in honor of Michael Polanyi with a cash prize of $1,000 and a graduate essay contest in honor of John von Neumann with a cash prize of $2,000.
(3) Summer workshops. Bright undergraduate and graduate students as well as exceptional high school juniors and seniors have the opportunity each summer to converge on Princeton, New Jersey and learn about complex systems from premier researchers in the field.
(4) A postdoctoral fellowship program. Three posdoctoral fellowships are awarded annually for research in the natural sciences, the engineering sciences, and the theoretical foundations of complex systems.
(5) A research grants program. Research grants are awarded for proposals that promise significantly to extend our understanding of complex systems.
Society memberships are available at http://www.iscid.org/membership.php.
ISCID
66 Witherspoon Street, Suite 1800
Princeton, NJ 08542
609-924-4424 (general)
609-924-0582 (fax)
General E-mail - info@iscid.org
File Date: 012.05.01