A list of websites and reading materials on strategy & complexity

The list has been developed based on a broad interpretation of the subject of ‘strategy & complexity’. Resources will therefore more, or less directly relate to ‘being strategic in the face of complexity’. Many of the articles and reports referred to in the attached bibliography can be accessed and downloaded from the internet. Most books can be found at amazon.com where you will often find a number of book reviews and summaries as well. Sometimes, reading the reviews will suffice and will give you the essence of the contents of the book after which you do not need to buy it. If the book looks interesting enough, buying options are easy

Advocacy in the tail: Exploring the implications of ‘climategate’ for science journalism and public debate in the digital age

This paper explores the evolving practices of science journalism and public debate in the digital age. The vehicle for this study is the release of digitally stored email correspondence, data and documents from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the weeks immediately prior to the United Nations Copenhagen Summit (COP-15) in December 2009. Described using the journalistic shorthand of ‘climategate’, and initially promoted through socio-technical networks of bloggers, this episode became a global news story and the subject of several formal reviews. ‘Climategate’ illustrates that media literate critics of anthropogenic explanations of climate change used digital tools to support their cause, making visible selected, newsworthy aspects of scientific information and the practices of scientists. In conclusion, I argue that ‘climategate’ may have profound implications for the production and distribution of science news, and how climate science is represented and debated in the digitally-mediated public sphere

Using mixed methods to track the growth of the Web: tracing open government data initiatives

In recent years, there have been a rising number of Open Government Data (OGD) initiatives; a political, social and technical movement armed with a common goal of publishing government data in open, re-usable formats in order to improve citizen-to-government transparency, efficiency, and democracy. As a sign of commitment, the Open Government Partnership was formed, comprising of a collection of countries striving to achieve OGD. Since its initial launch, the number of countries committed to adopting an Open Government Data agenda has grown to more than 50; including countries from South America to the Far East.Current approaches to understanding Web initiatives such as OGD are still being developed. Methodologies grounded in multidisciplinarity are still yet to be achieved; typically research follows a social or technological approach underpinned by quantitative or qualitative methods, and rarely combining the two into a single analytical framework. In this paper, a mixed methods approach will be introduced, which uses qualitative data underpinned by sociological theory to complement a quantitative analysis using computer science techniques. This method aims to provide an alternative approach to understanding the socio-technical activities of the Web. To demonstrate this, the activities of the UK Open Government Data initiative will be explored using a range of quantitative and qualitative data, examining the activities of the community, to provide a rich analysis of the formation and development of the UK OGD community

WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control

Annotated and edited transcript of a Witness Seminar in collaboration with the Department of Kowledge Management and Sharing, WHO, held in Geneva, 26 February 2010. Introduction by Professor Virginia Berridge, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. First published by Queen Mary, University of London, 2012. ©The Trustee of the Wellcome Trust, London, 2012. All volumes are freely available online at www.history.qmul.ac.uk/research/modbiomed/ wellcome_witnesses/Annotated and edited transcript of a Witness Seminar in collaboration with the Department of Kowledge Management and Sharing, WHO, held in Geneva, 26 February 2010. Introduction by Professor Virginia Berridge, London School of Hygiene and Tropical MedicineAnnotated and edited transcript of a Witness Seminar in collaboration with the Department of Kowledge Management and Sharing, WHO, held in Geneva, 26 February 2010. Introduction by Professor Virginia Berridge, London School of Hygiene and Tropical MedicineAnnotated and edited transcript of a Witness Seminar in collaboration with the Department of Kowledge Management and Sharing, WHO, held in Geneva, 26 February 2010. Introduction by Professor Virginia Berridge, London School of Hygiene and Tropical MedicineAnnotated and edited transcript of a Witness Seminar in collaboration with the Department of Kowledge Management and Sharing, WHO, held in Geneva, 26 February 2010. Introduction by Professor Virginia Berridge, London School of Hygiene and Tropical MedicineAnnotated and edited transcript of a Witness Seminar in collaboration with the Department of Kowledge Management and Sharing, WHO, held in Geneva, 26 February 2010. Introduction by Professor Virginia Berridge, London School of Hygiene and Tropical MedicineAnnotated and edited transcript of a Witness Seminar in collaboration with the Department of Kowledge Management and Sharing, WHO, held in Geneva, 26 February 2010. Introduction by Professor Virginia Berridge, London School of Hygiene and Tropical MedicineThe World Health Organization (WHO)’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) is the first global convention on public health. Comprehensive tobacco control had been the subject of 20 resolutions – consensus statements of all the member states – passed by the World Health Assembly beginning in 1970. This was 20 years after Sir Richard Doll and Sir Austin Bradford Hill suggested a link between smoking and cancer. The idea of a legally binding international convention, proposed by the late Dr Ruth Roemer and supported by a report from Dr Judith Mackay, was given priority by the new WHO Director-General Dr Gro Brundtland in 1998 when she elevated tobacco control as one of WHO’s three flagship programmes and created the Tobacco Free Initiative. The idea took wing with the publication of a review of tobacco company strategies to undermine tobacco control activities at WHO, which drew on 13 million documents released by the US courts to the public in 1998. This Witness Seminar, held in Geneva on the fifth anniversary of the WHO FCTC in 2010, heard from key individuals actively involved with the treaty negotiations, held between 2000 and 2003, and which came into force on 27 February 2005.The History of Modern Biomedicine Research Group is funded by the Wellcome Trust, which is a registered charity, no. 210183

The new merger: combining third sector and market-based approaches to tackling inequalities

In this paper we discuss the challenge posed by growing inequalities, specifically health inequalities, which have grown increasingly wider in recent decades. Rather than arguing for a wholesale return to state intervention to curb the worst excesses of the market, we put forward a less obvious potential solution, arguing for a greater role - and greater recognition - for the 'social economy': the part of the third or non-profit sector concerned with trading in the market rather than relying upon public funds or charitable donations to stay in business. We present three examples of such organisations, drawn from the UK, and discuss how doing business in such a way presents obvious benefits for, but challenges to, existing thinking, particularly in relation to how 'success' should be measured