| Contractor 712A |
 |
| Government 712B |
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| REGISTRATION RATES |
| |
MORS Member |
Nonmember |
| US Government |
$575 |
$650 |
| Non-US Government |
$675 |
$750 |
MORS Mini-symposium: Social Science Underpinnings of Complex Operations
George Mason University, Arlington Campus
October 18-21, 2010
1. Purpose
The purpose of the Social Science Underpinnings of Complex Operations Mini-symposium (SSUCO Mini-symposium) is to:
• Introduce analysts to ongoing social science research that may be relevant to their work in complex operations.
• Expose analysts to important processes and practices of interagency activity in complex operations, and the social theory and research upon which these are built.
• Expose analysts to methods and approaches that may help apply social science, regional expertise, and knowledge on current policy topics to studies and other analytic efforts.
Sustained U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to focus significant attention on national security challenges where the markers of success are primarily non-military. Variously called irregular warfare (IW), hybrid warfare, non-traditional challenges, complex operations, or overseas contingency operations, such problem spaces have proved to be intractable within the current the DoD analytic capability. Complex operations are fraught with problems at multiple levels, and traditional analytic approaches (i.e. technology-centered, physics-based) are not proving up to the task.
As the DoD analysis community searches for new methods to ascertain the meanings and implications of concepts like culture, development, conflict prevention and interagency cooperation, the social sciences have become central to the thinking with regard to these critical areas. Still, “fixing” the analytic response to the complex challenges requires more than a mere sprinkling of some generic social science or subject matter expertise: it requires entirely new ways of framing DoD problems, inviting new people to the analytic table, and developing new work practices to support the effective spanning of the multiple disciplines required to tackle these problem sets. This mini-symposium seeks to address these analytic requirements.
2. Background
In the previous two years, MORS has conducted four special meetings related to many of these issues; a workshop on Irregular Warfare held at the Naval Postgraduate School in December 2007; a second workshop on the Impact of Emerging Societies on National Security held at the Argonne National Laboratory in April 2008; and a third Irregular Warfare conference in February 2009 and most recently, a fourth held in April of 2010.
Related to this increased attention to environments of irregular warfare, MORS has been organizing to accommodate increased interest in the role of social sciences in military operations research. The 76th MORS Symposium in 2008 at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, CT saw the creation of the MORS Social Science Community of Practice (CoP) that continues to meet monthly in the Washington, DC area. During the past two years, the interest in MORS Working Group 32 (Warfighter Performance and Social Science Methods) has also increased significantly– to the point that Computational Social Sciences and Human Behavior and Performance were pulled out of WG32 for the 78th MORSS and organized as separate focus sessions in order to accommodate the level of activity in the three areas.
At the same time, many members of the DoD analysis community are unfamiliar with how best to leverage social science for complex operations-related efforts. At the meeting of the Social Science CoP at the 77th MORSS, many attendees expressed frustration with not knowing how to best identify, locate and engage the social science expertise that they needed to support their work.
Successful complex operations are collaboration dependent. DoD must work closely with other federal agencies and key allies and partners to achieve their mission. To expand the breadth of social science expertise, the mini-symposium will recruit leading researchers, those applying social science in the operational context, and those studying or applying social science to the interagency context. The application domains for this mini-symposium will be: 1) emerging theory and research relevant for complex operations; 2) the interagency context; and 3) operational application of social science.
The SSUCO Mini-symposium builds on the efforts at the annual MORS symposiums in Work Groups (WG): WG 16 - Special Operations and Irregular Warfare; and WG 32 - Social Science Methods, as well as past MORS workshops.
Hotel Information
MORS has reserved a block of rooms at the following hotel:
Hilton Arlington
950 North Stafford Street
Arlington, Virginia 22203
CONTACT: Ms. Renee Baer directly at 703-465-5145 or Renee.Baer@ihrco.com
The daily rate is $279.00
Please reserve your room by 18 September 2010 and mention MORS to receive the group rate.
Special Events
MIXER
Tuesday, October 19
5:30 PM - 7:30 PM
Hard Times Cafe Clarendon
3028 Wilson Blvd
Arlington VA 22201
(703) 528-2233
1703 N. Beauregard Street Suite 450, Alexandria, VA 22311, 703-933-9070, 703-933-9066 (FAX)