Application of Fuzzy Cognitive Maps to Analysis of Development Scenarios for Academic Units

Abstract

For many classes of problems it is difficult to make decisions, assessments or develop plans based on precise quantitative models. Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCM) are a well-known tool for qualitative analysis of systems that uses a simple representation of knowledge in the form of a graph of concepts linked by causal relationships. Advantages of FCMs are the ease of gathering and representing knowledge and the simplicity of reasoning techniques, very close to neural networks. The paper gives results of experiments aiming at application of FCMs to analysis of development scenarios for research and teaching units. The analyzes were conducted for four representative classes of academic units: strong, medium, weak with a development potential and weak; their results are discussed and several observations related to reasoning with FCMs are made.