Raymond L. Ison (born 3 July 1952, Bathurst, NSW, Australia) is an Australian-British cybernetician, systems scholar/scientist, and Professor emeritus of Systems at the Open University in the UK. He is also the former President of the International Federation for Systems Research (IFSR), from 2018-2026. He was also Professor Systems for Sustainability at Monash University, and fellow at the Centre for Policy Development, and President of the International Society for the Systems Sciences in the year 2014-15. He is known for his work on systems praxeology within rural development,Leeuwis, Cees, C. Leeuwis, and Aw Ban. Communication for rural innovation. Blackwell Publishers, 2004. sustainable management,Steyaert, Patrick, and Janice Jiggins. "Governance of complex environmental situations through social learning: a synthesis of SLIM's lessons for research, policy and practice." Environmental science & policy 10.6 (2007): 575-586. systemic governance and the design and enactment of learning systems.
David Russell, a psychotherapist and psychodynamic psychologist in private practice in Sydney and Blackheath, NSW, Australia, about Ray Ison: "All of Ison's professional work has been driven by a passion to maintain a flourishing and highly interactive life-world. His writings and research have given voice to this passion by consistently exemplifying an epistemology of action: How we know what we know; how this knowledge shapes ongoing experience; and how this experience is found to be satisfying or dissatisfying. His approach has been to focus on relationships and the networks in which they are embedded, namely, the systems."
Awards
Foundation Medal, Wesley College (University of Sydney); Academician of IASCYS (International Academy of Systems and Cybernetic Sciences)
Life and work
From a background in Agricultural Science (University of Sydney) including plant ecophysiology and agronomy (University of Queensland) and systems agriculture, rural development and agricultural extension (Hawkesbury & University of Sydney) Ison has established himself as a major scholar and practitioner in the field of Systems Praxeology – the science of practical action grounded in systems thinking in practice (STiP).
Ison's research and scholarship spans the biophysical and social and is primarily interdisciplinary and collaborative. He has made major contributions to systemic governance, particularly in the fields of water and river catchments based on social learning realised through STiP. Many of his publications can be seen or accessed by Open Research Online.
Ison, who took up the Chair in Systems at The Open University (UK) in 1994, is only the third appointee to the Open University (OU) chair in Systems since the group was established in 1971 (the inaugural chair was John Beishon, followed by Derek Pugh). From 2008 to 2015 he was also Professor Systems for Sustainability at Monash University (School of Geography and the Monash Sustainability Institute) where he established and ran the Systemic Governance Research Program which now continues within the Applied Systems Thinking in Practice (ASTiP) group at the OU.
Ison has been returned in all UK Research Assessment Exercises (now Research Excellence Framework or REF) with the OU Development Studies group (there is no category for Systems). In 2021 this will be Unit of Assessment 22, Anthropology and Development Studies.
Building on his academic achievements Ison has gone on to hold major leadership roles within the international Systems and Cybernetics community. He is currently President of the International Federation for Systems Research (IFSR).
Early career - Australia-based 1982-1994
Ison began his academic career as a Lecturer at the University of Western Sydney in 1982. From 1982 to 1986 he was part of the internationally famed 'Hawkesbury Experiment' to co-develop with students a novel 'learning system' graduating Systems Agriculturalists based on capabilities to think and act systemically, to take responsibility for their own learning and to be effective communicators in processes of transformative change. Originally inspired by Richard Bawden, the Hawkesbury 'experiment' ran for 20 years and influenced agricultural education internationally.2 Whilst at Hawkesbury Ison led local organisation of the international conference 'Agricultural Systems Research' 3 as well as becoming Director of Farming Systems overseeing the College's multi-enterprise farming operation also used as a basis for experiential learning by students. In the latter role Ison embarked upon the situated, collaborative, reflexive, systemic praxis that has been central to his career. His exploration of purpose in relation to field-crop ecosystems with Richard Bawden4 and his co-authored paper: Soft-systems methodology for action research: The role of a college farm in an agricultural education institution exemplify his systemic research praxis at this time.5
Ison was a pioneer in seeking and gaining funding for 'action research' projects6 within the agricultural sector in Australia. The Australian Seed Industry Study (with W. Potts) was funded in 1985 by the then Rural Industries Research & Development Corporation.7 The report was an exemplar of how to understand an industry holistically and to draw attention to systemic failures in organisation and structure.
In 1986 Ison moved to the University of Sydney, where he was appointed Senior Lecturer in the School of Crop Sciences. From 1986 to 1994 he created and braided two research programs.
1. Second-order R&D rather than 'Knowledge transfer'
In a long and fruitful collaboration with David Russell (formerly UWS, now WSU)8 beginning in 1986 they have made a major contribution to elucidating the failings of the linear model of knowledge, or technology, transfer that dominates the mainstream innovation and agricultural extension paradigm, understandings and practices they characterised as 'first-order R&D'.9 This research was built on a critical review of 'agricultural extension' practices (subsequently translated into French and Persian).10 Co-researching with pastoralists, extension and research staff in the NSW Western Division in the CARR (Community Approaches to Rangeland Research) project (1990–94), Ison with Russell established how 'enthusiasm' (from the Greek meaning 'the god within') could be understood as theory, underlying emotion and methodology and how an R&D system could be designed based on 'common enthusiasms' rather than 'information transfer', the prevailing, yet inadequate 'first-order' paradigm.11 In making 'second-order R&D' doable they demonstrated how the limitations of the linear model could be overcome through conceptual, praxis and institutional innovation. In addition to elucidating how enthusiasm might operate as an underpinning conception for an R&D system12 their research:
found that processes that sought consensus, rather than accommodations through valuing difference, undermined enthusiasm to act i.e., consensus is a lowest common denominator position; enthusiasm could be triggered or brought forth by providing the experience of being listened to unconditionally or by cultivating the telling of stories.13 This experience of working with narrative was later taken up and refined by Ison with Paschen in climate change adaptation research which challenged the mainstream approach to vulnerabilities assessment)14 developed tools and methods for dialogic rather than debate-based communication in the praxis of co-researching – including diffusing power relations by researchers owning what they had experienced rather than telling pastoralists 'how things were' 15 16 elucidated how the semi-arid rangelands (and institutionalised R&D) came to be socially constructed as Europeans appropriated the landscape17 demonstrated how artefactual technology as well as social technologies acted to transform human experience and thus relationship with the biophysical world18 showed how the institutional arrangements of organised R&D undermined the capacity for researchers to act with enthusiasm (a precursor to Ison's later concern with systemic governing)19
The CARR research is reported in the edited book by Ison & Russell (2000/2007) based on contributions from research team members.20 Russell and Ison delivered an invited plenary talk based on this research at the IVth International Rangeland Congress in Montpellier in 1991.21
Both Russell and Ison were influenced by the 'biology of cognition' research and epistemology of Humberto Maturana.22 23 Ison first met Maturana in Melbourne in 1988. Subsequently, they have maintained collaborative conversations in the UK, Chile, Ecuador, Sardinia and at ASC events in the USA. Maturana's question: what do we do when we do what we do? has been a leitmotif in Ison's scholarship underpinning his contributions to systems praxeology. Consequently, Ison has become recognised internationally within the Systems community as a Maturana scholar;24 25 Pille Bunnell, also a Maturana scholar, has been a long-term collaborator.
In the early 1990s in two invited Keynote presentations Ison outlined the case for what he then called participative ecodesign.26 27 When asked to address 'changing community attitudes' by the Australian Rangeland Society he argued
the case for participative ecodesign as a means of conducting future rangeland research and development. To embark on this path it will be necessary for the rangeland science community to critically question traditions and myths which shape current practices. These include current conceptions of extension, "technology transfer", community and human communication. Research has shown that attitudes of rangeland decision-makers are rarely a constraint to dealing with issues of land degradation and management and technology "adoption". Attempts to change attitudes are likely to be of little value. 28 A recognition of the unequal power relations implicit in traditional practice is a necessary precondition to the emergence of participative processes which reverse the history of subjection of grazier knowledge and values by institutionalised authority. A set of values and guiding principles are proposed for participative ecodesign. These include (i) reinterpreting our relationship with land; (ii) policy development based on citizen as opposed to individual values and (iii) acknowledging power in the design process.
In this work Ison foreshadowed the rise in interest in systemic design in the early 2000s and his own, later, concern with the responsibility of the systems practitioner to be able to take a 'design turn' in their praxis (outlined in his book Systems Practice. How to Act).
Ison also pioneered in Australian rural research the development of methods for interdisciplinary and citizen engagement in formulating research questions and projects adapted from Rapid and Participatory Appraisal (conceptualised as an antidote to 'development tourism'). His insight was to see development failure as operating as much in 'developed' countries as in 'developing countries'.29 30 These approaches were later adapted for application in organisations. For a period Rapid Organisational Appraisal was successfully incorporated into Open University staff induction practices by the HR Department (i.e. induction was no longer something done to you by the organisation, but a group-based inquiry carried out by inductees into the systemic nature of the organisation and used to co-design a learning experience for senior staff).31
2. Grassland systems and grassland eco-physiologyFollowing from his doctoral research32 Ison's subsequent plant eco-physiological research, mainly with PhD students, elucidated important agronomic and managerial factors associated with seed bank dynamics, seed dormancy mechanisms and nutritive characteristics for alleviating the autumn feed gap in the wheat-sheep zone of Australia.33 34