Publications
The Institute currently publishes across two active streams, within a broader taxonomy of publication types that will expand as the Application Phase matures. Working Papers establish, test and refine the theoretical framework of Decision Systems Engineering. Notes from the Field capture short, evidence led observations from the evolving landscape of organisational judgement, authority and AI. Further publications will follow as the Application Phase produces evidence capable of testing, revising or strengthening DSE 1.0 Candidate.
Working Papers
In-development research shared for intellectual engagement prior to final publication. Working papers represent the Institute's current thinking on specific research questions and are explicitly subject to revision.
Working Paper, Forthcoming
Enterprise Architecture, Organisation Design, AI Governance, GRC: each discipline addresses a genuine governance problem. But each assumes an answer to a prior question it does not pose: who, specifically, has the authority to act on what AI produces?
Working Paper, Forthcoming
A preliminary account of the Legitimacy Yield measure: what it captures, how it is measured, and why existing governance frameworks do not measure it despite its centrality to the justifiability of decision system authority.
Working Paper, Forthcoming
A first account of CVL, the representational system for decision authority structures. What it must express, what notation constraints apply, and how it relates to existing representational frameworks in governance and architecture.
Notes from the Field
Working Papers establish theory. Notes from the Field observe reality. Neither is subordinate to the other. Notes are numbered, evidence led and written to be read in under five minutes.
Notes from the Field is a first class publication stream of the Institute, with its own dedicated page. Through comparison, challenge and accumulation, isolated observations become patterns, patterns become evidence, and evidence strengthens, refines or refutes the discipline’s understanding.
Field Note 001 · Published June 2026
Human in the Loop tells us that a person remains somewhere within the decision process. It does not tell us whether that person still exercises meaningful authority over the outcome. Those are different things.
Field Note 002 · Published July 2026
When AI shifts where decisional authority actually resides, the people formally responsible are typically the last to find out. This is not a failure of attention. It is structural.
Field Note 003 · Published July 2026
The approval is rarely where the decision began. A field investigation into where authority actually resides in AI enabled decision systems.
Position Papers
Statements of the Institute's position on questions of governance, policy, and the future of AI decision oversight. Position papers are explicitly normative, they state what the Institute believes should be true, and why.
Position Paper, Forthcoming
Why AI augmented organisations, without a constitutional specification of decision authority, follow a predictable trajectory: the progressive migration of effective decisional control from formal authority holders to AI systems through investment decisions that individually appear routine.
Position Paper, Forthcoming
The distinction between governing AI systems and governing the decision systems in which they participate. Safe, compliant AI can operate within a constitutional vacuum. AI Governance does not close the constitutional gap. Decision Systems Engineering does.
Journal Articles
Peer-reviewed contributions to the academic literature on decision governance, organisational authority, and the constitutional implications of AI participation in consequential decisions.
Journal Article, Planned
The foundational academic paper introducing DSE as a formal discipline, its object of study, its relationship to existing governance disciplines, its laws and axioms, and its central analytical construct: the Constitutional Gap.
Journal Article, Planned
Organisations that govern processes, strategies, and capabilities but not the decisions those structures produce are governing inputs, not outputs. The decision is the correct unit of governance analysis. This paper makes the case and examines its implications.
White Papers
Extended applied analysis of decision governance challenges in specific sectors and contexts. White papers are written for practitioners, boards, and policymakers engaged with the governance problems DSE describes.
White Paper, Forthcoming
Boards claim oversight of their organisations' most consequential decisions. But as AI reshapes the possibility space of those decisions, the formal governance layer increasingly oversees a decision system it cannot see. What boards need to govern, and what they currently lack.
White Paper, Forthcoming
AI raises the floor of organisational learning for everyone. It does not raise the quality of organisational judgement. Competitive advantage in the AI era belongs to organisations with better decision systems, not better AI tools. A practitioner analysis.
Commentary
Shorter pieces responding to developments in AI governance, organisational decision making, and the public debate about AI and authority. Commentary is more immediate than working papers and less formal than position papers.
Commentary, Forthcoming
AI participation in decisions primarily operates by shaping the possibility space before the decision is made. Decision makers who believe they are choosing freely are often choosing from a set that has already been shaped by systems outside the governance architecture.
Commentary, Forthcoming
Most attempts to govern AI in organisations treat the governance challenge as a technology problem: build better AI, add better guardrails, impose better compliance requirements. These are necessary but not sufficient. The constitutional layer requires constitutional design.
Annual Reports
Annual accounts of the Institute's research programme: what was completed, what was learned, what was revised in light of evidence, and what the next year's research will address.
Annual Report, Forthcoming
The foundational research programme is complete. DSE 1.0 Candidate, the first canonical specification of Decision Systems Engineering, is established. The Application Phase begins. This report documents the programme, its findings, and the research agenda for the year ahead.
Reading Lists
Curated reading on decision governance, organisational authority, AI and institutions, and the intellectual traditions from which DSE draws. Reading lists are not endorsements. They are intellectual maps.
The Institute's reading lists will be published as the research programme develops. The first, covering the foundational literature on decision governance and authority systems, is forthcoming. The second, covering the emerging literature on AI and organisational authority, is in preparation.
Reading lists reflect the Institute's intellectual debts and research context. They are intended for researchers, practitioners, and those who want to understand the intellectual tradition within which DSE sits.