Werner Ulrich's Home Page: Bio
A Short Professional Biography
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Werner Ulrich's Home Page: Bio |
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A Short Professional Biography |
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Biography After studying economics and social sciences at the Universities of Fribourg and Zurich, Ulrich moved to the University of California at Berkeley in order to study and work with C. West Churchman, then Professor of Business Administration in the Graduate School of Business Administration and Director of the Social Sciences Project at UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory. Churchman had made himself an international name as a research philosopher and pioneer of Operations Research / Management Science and of the "Systems Approach." |
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Five fascinating years followed, of learning and struggling to understand the implications of the systems approach for a critically tenable approach to applied disciplines such as planning and management. One of the adventures of these years was the opportunity of meeting at UC Berkeley exceptional minds such as Paul Feyerabend, Jurgen Habermas, Erich Jantsch, Reinhard Bendix, Aaron Wildavsky and many others; another adventure was an extensive two-year study of the Critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant. The result of this work was Ulrich's habilitation thesis Critical Heuristics of Social Planning: A New Approach to Practical Philosophy, published 1983 by Haupt in Bern and republished 1994 by Wiley in Chichester and New York (still in print). It presented a new understanding of systems thinking, an approach that is now known as critical systems heuristics (CSH). The methodological core principle of CSH is boundary critique, a new approach to reflective professional practice. The book was to become the seminal work of a development in systems thinking that is now often referred to as critical systems thinking (CST) and which continues today to influence a growing number of applied disciplines, among them the fields of operations research / management science, public policy and planning theory, evaluation research, management philosophy, professional ethics, information systems design, social planning, environmental planning and management, and others. |
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Upon his return to Switzerland, in 1981, Ulrich decided to submit his work on critical systems heuristics to the double test of professional practice and of academic teaching and research. Thus he embarked on a double career as evaluation researcher and policy analyst in government and as an academic teacher of future professionals. He has many years of experience as chief evaluator of public health and social welfare in the Canton of Bern. He built up and directed Switzerland’s first office of evaluation research within a state administration, and also became a pioneer of poverty research in Switzerland. |
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During the same years, he was a professor of social planning, evaluation research, poverty research, and critical systems thinking at the University of Fribourg, where he was appointed Titular Professor of the Theory and Practice of Social Planning in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Philosophische Fakultät / Faculté des Lettres). In addition he engaged himself in adult education, by teaching, during several years, critical systems thinking in the joint "Continued Education in Ecology" program of the Universities of Bern, Fribourg, and Neuchâtel. |
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University of Italian Switzerland |
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More recently, he was appointed Visiting Professor of Critical Systems Thinking at the University of Hull, UK (Centre for Systems Studies of the Department of Management, now Hull University Business School, 1995-96); at the University of Lincolnshire & Humberside (now University of Lincoln), Lincoln, UK (Centre for Systems Research of the Lincoln School of Management, 1997-2000); at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand (Erskine Science Fellowship, Department of Management, 1999); and at The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK (Honorary Visiting Professorship, Faculty of Mathematics, Computing and Technology, 2005-2010). In 2001, he initiated the Lugano Summer School of Systems Design at the University of Lugano, which he has been directing since. |
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Ulrich is now retired Ancien professeur titulaire of the University of Fribourg (Faculty of Arts and Humanities) but remains Director of the Lugano Summer School of Systems Design. He is on the editorial boards of the journals Systems Research and Behavioral Science (Wiley, New York and Chichester, UK, since 1995), Systemic Practice and Action Research (Springer, Berlin, since 1988), and Journal of Enterprising Culture (World Scientific Publishing, Singapore, since 1993), and is co-founding Associate Editor of the Journal of Research Practice, an open-access electronic journal published by the International Consortium for the Advancement of Academic Publication (ICAAP) in cooperation with Athabasca University Press (AU Press, since 2005). Athabasca University is Canada's Open University in Edmonton, Canada. |
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Ulrich has published some 185 publications thus far. His current research program CST for Professionals and Citizens explores the ways critical systems thinking, and particularly boundary critique, can contribute to responsible professional practice and to preparing citizens for their role in a living civil society. His related research program on Critical Pragmatism aims to help develop a "philosophy for professionals" on the basis of a critically revised pragmatist philosophy, boundary critique / CSH, and professional ethics. Ulrich's biography is currently listed in Who's Who in the World (Marquis Who's Who, New Providence, NJ) and in Leading Educators of the World (International Biographical Centre, Cambridge, UK). |
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Selected Recent Publications Critical
systems heuristics (authors: W. Ulrich and M. Reynolds). In M. Reynolds
and S. Holwell (eds.), Systems Approaches to Managing Change:
A Practical Guide, London: Springer, in association with The
Open University, Milton Keynes, UK, 2010, pp. 243-292. Reflections on reflective practice. A series
of essays
on the relevance and limitations of the idea
of "reflective practice" as it has developed
in the professional education literature, and how we
might develop it into an adequate framework for applied science
and expertise. Part 1: The mainstream concept of reflective
practice and its blind spot. – Part 2: Applied science and expertise,
or the art of testing and contesting practical claims. – Part 3: In search of practical reason.
– Part 4: Philosophy of
practice and Aristotelian virtue ethics. – Part 5: Practical reason
and rational ethics: Kant. – Part 6a: Communicative
rationality and formal pragmatics: Habermas 1. –
Part 6b: Argumentation theory and practical
discourse: Habermas 2. (series
to be continued) [HTML] http://wulrich.com/bimonthly_march2008.html Exploring
discourse ethics. Two essays written to support the "Reflections
on reflective practice" series but which are organized as an
independent excursion. Ulrich's
Bimonthly, March-April and May-June 2010. The greening of pragmatism. Three reflections on the
past, present, and future of critical pragmatism. Part (i): The emergence of critical pragmatism.
Part (ii): Current
issues in developing critical pragmatism
– a methodological trilemma. Part (iii): The way ahead.
Theory and practice. Part I: Beyond theory.
Part II: The rise and fall of the "primacy of theory."
Ulrich's
Bimonthly, November-December 2006 and January-February 2007. Philosophy
for professionals: towards critical pragmatism. Viewpoint, Journal of the Operational Research Society,
58, No. 8 (August), 2007, pp. 1109-1113. [ISSN 0160-5682]
Rethinking
critically reflective research practice: beyond Popper's critical
rationalism. Journal of Research
Practice, 2, No. 2 (October), 2006, article P1.
[ISSN 1712-851X]. A plea for critical pragmatism. Ulrich's
Bimonthly, September-October 2006. [HTML] http://wulrich.com/bimonthly_september2006.html
Critical pragmatism: a new approach to professional and business ethics. In L. Zsolnai (ed.), Interdisciplinary Yearbook of Business Ethics, Vol. I, Oxford, UK, and Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang Academic Publishers, 2006, pp. 53-85. [ISSN 1661-5999] [ISBN 3-03910-750-X] [US-ISBN 0-8204-8010-X] A
brief introduction to critical systems heuristics (CSH). ECOSENSUS project web
site, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK, 14
October 2005. Obituary:
C. West Churchman, 1913-2004. Journal of the Operational Research
Society, 55, No. 11 (Nov.), 2004, pp. 1123-1129. [ISSN
0160-5682] In
memory of C. West Churchman (1913-2004): reminiscences, retrospectives,
and reflections. Organisational Transformation and Social Change,
1, No. 2/3, 2004, pp. 199-219. [ISSN 1477-9633] Sozialplanung
[social planning].
In E. Carigiet, U. Mäder, and J.-M. Bonvin (eds), Wörterbuch der
Sozialpolitik [Dictionary of Social Policy], Zurich, Switzerland: Rotpunktverlag, 2003, pp. 300-301.[ISBN 3-85869-253-0]
On-line version
of the Dictionary: Beyond
methodology choice: critical systems thinking as critically systemic
discourse. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 54,
No. 4 (April), 2003, pp. 325-342. [ISSN 0160-5682]
Public
policy analysis. In H.G. Daellenbach and R.L. Flood
(eds),
The
Informed Student Guide to Management Science, London:
Thomson, 2002, pp. 213-215. [ISBN 1-86152-542-7]
Critical
systems heuristics. In H.G. Daellenbach and R.L. Flood
(eds),
The
Informed Student Guide to Management Science, London:
Thomson, 2002, pp. 72-73. [ISBN 1-86152-542-7]
Boundary
critique. In H.G. Daellenbach and R.L. Flood (eds),
The
Informed Student Guide to Management Science, London:
Thomson, 2002, pp. 41-42. [ISBN 1-86152-542-7]
A discursive approach to reflective
practice in ISD. Part 1: A philosophical staircase for information systems definition,
design, and development.
Part 2: Critically systemic discourse. JITTA,
Journal of Information Technology Theory and Application, 3, No. 3,
2001 (Special issue: the role of dialogue in information systems development, ed. by M. Metcalfe), pp. 55-84
and pp. 85-106.
[ISSN 1532-4516]
The
quest for competence in systemic research and practice.
Systems Research and Behavioral Science,
18,
No. 1,
2001, pp. 3-28. [ISSN 1092-7026 print, ISSN 1099-1743 on-line]
Reflective practice in the civil society:
the contribution of critically systemic thinking. Reflective Practice,
1, No. 2, 2000, pp. 247-268. [ISSN 1462-3943 print, ISSN 1470-1103
on-line] |
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Last
updated 14 Aug 2010 (first published 09 Nov
2002) |
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