SD Meets OR: A New Synergy to Address Policy Problems

We reflect on our past seven years of collaboration to develop systems models of U.S. higher education and scientific workforce development. Based on three recent modeling examples, we offer a methodological proposition that many traditional Operations Research (OR) models can be improved by including feedback processes as is commonly done in system dynamics (SD) modeling. Such models, even if simple and approximate, can be powerful, insightful, easy to communicate, and effective. While these modeling examples may not follow conventional SD or OR modeling, they benefit from and contribute to both schools of modeling. We argue that to build such synergy, modeling teams should be willing to create models building on the strengths of each school of modeling.