Systems Approaches and Their Application

In the development of an international agenda for applied systems analysis Swedish experience, developed over a considerable number of years, embraces a wide range of application domains. One international focal point for the Swedish interest in systems analysis has been – the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, with its headquarters in Laxenburg outside Vienna. The Swedish Research Council for Env- onment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning (Formas) is currently responsible for the Swedish contacts with . When Formas was established in it inherited the Swedish national committee for the promotion of contacts and systems a- lysis that was originally set up by the Swedish Council for Planning and Coordination of Research (frn ), which was abolished in conjunction with a major reform of the Swedish research ? nancing system. Within the framework of the Committee a special project was launched in line with a proposal by Gunnar Sjöstedt dealing with the Swedish experience in s- tems analysis and thus, indirectly, with themes related to most of ’s activities. The project co-ordination and editorial tasks were given to Mats-Olov Olsson and Gunnar Sjöstedt under the direct surveillance of the Committee. Many of the Committee m- bers and their co-workers as well as several other Swedish scholars have contributed to this book. Several years of work have gone into bringing together Swedish experience in this ? eld, and we hope that the book will be interesting for an international as well as for a Swedish audience.