Abstrakt
A recurring discussion at the annual international system dynamics conference (ISDC) is about the situation when young researchers, typically master students or PhD. students, decide to use system dynamics (SD) for their studies, while lacking fundamental SD support at their institutions. One option to get support is to attend and present at the ISDC, a valuable but short opportunity.
An alternative for continued support is Peer Mentoring Groups (PMGs). The participation in a PMG can be valuable for presenting work to other system dynamicists and evaluating their work, building up a scientific network and expand horizons.
But why is it that, even when people find PMG useful and want to participate, many groups die out? In this paper, we describe the dynamics of PMGs and investigate the system structures that create a situation where effort and commitment decrease with each meeting, resulting in a PMG to eventually fade away. We discuss potential possibilities on how to change these "undesirable" dynamics.
That is, what needs to be done so that groups do not die out. Thereby, our intention is to provide support for other PMGs as a basis for discussion for future research needed in this area.