Geoffrey Vickers

Sir (Charles) Geoffrey Vickers VC (13 October 1894 – 16 March 1982) was an English lawyer, administrator, writer and pioneering systems scientist.

"He studied Classics at Oxford in 1923, and later became a lawyer where he became involved in international affairs. Vickers is regarded as a systems practitioner rather than an academic. He introduced many of the basic systems thinking terms, and derived the concept of appreciative systems to describe human activity. He recognized that appreciation of systems requires the participation of not only the observer, but also that of the subject."

From 1946 to 1948 he was also first Legal Advisor to the National Coal Board, where he worked alongside E. F. Schumacher. Afterwards he became a member of National Coal Board in charge of manpower, training, education, health and welfare (1948–55). From 1952 until 1960 he was member of the Medical Research Council and was chairman of the Research Committee of Mental Health Research Fund from 1951–1967. In 1977 he was president of the Society for General Systems Research, now the International Society for the Systems Sciences. wiki

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