International Eurasian Academy of Sciences, IEAS

Academician

Jifa GU

Profile:

Elected Academician of the International Eurasian Academy of Sciences in July 2014, Professor Jifa Gu is a distinguished Chinese systems scientist whose research has contributed significantly to the development of operations research, systems engineering, and systems methodology in China. Born on 2 October 1935 in Shanghai, with ancestral roots in Zhejiang Province, he enrolled in the Department of Mathematics at Fudan University in 1953 before transferring to the Computational Mathematics programme at Peking University, from which he graduated in 1957. He subsequently pursued graduate studies at the Leningrad Mathematical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences from 1959 to 1963, earning his Candidate of Sciences (Ph.D.-equivalent) degree in Mathematical Sciences. Upon returning to China, he joined the Institute of Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and in 1979 transferred to the newly established Institute of Systems Science, where he served as Deputy Director from 1988 to 1991. Following the integration of the institute into the Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science in 1998, he continued his research there until his retirement in 2004. He currently serves as Research Professor at the Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science and Professor at the School of Economics and Management, University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He was elected Academician of the International Academy for Systems and Cybernetic Sciences in 2010 and Fellow of the same academy in 2012, serving as its Vice President from 2012 to 2021. He also served as President of the Systems Engineering Society of China from 1994 to 2002 and President of the International Federation for Systems Research from 2002 to 2005. In 2023, he received the Fudan Management Lifetime Achievement Award.

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Professor Gu’s research has focused on operations research, systems engineering, systems methodology, and knowledge science, with particular emphasis on the development of the “Wuli-Shili-Renli” (WSR) system approach. Co-proposed with Dr. Zhu Zhichang in 1994, the WSR approach integrates three dimensions of complex systems: the material and technical dimension (wuli), the cognitive and organisational dimension (shili), and the social and human dimension (renli). By combining these perspectives within a unified framework, the approach provides a methodology for analysing and addressing complex socio-technical problems that cannot be adequately understood through purely technical or purely social approaches. Professor Gu has applied and developed the methodology across a range of fields, including energy systems, water resources, regional development, global change, decision-support systems, and traditional Chinese medicine, contributing to the integration of technical and social approaches within systems research. He has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed publications and more than 30 books and proceedings. Through sustained theoretical research, interdisciplinary application, and international academic service, Professor Gu has contributed to the development of systems methodology in China and to broader efforts to integrate Eastern and Western approaches to complex systems analysis and decision-making.