Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences
The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) is an international society for practitioners in the fields of operations research (O.R.), management science, and analytics. It was established in 1995 with the merger of the Operations Research Society of America (ORSA) and The Institute of Management Sciences (TIMS).
Overview
INFORMS promotes greater public awareness, interest, and understanding about the benefits of operations research (O.R.) and analytics and provides a variety of programs and services that support lifelong learning and networking for O.R. and analytics professionals. This includes publishing 16 peer-reviewed journals, hosting numerous conferences and meetings, providing continuing education courses and professional certification, and administering dozens of special-interest communities that help professionals network and collaborate with colleagues from around the world. INFORMS is a member of the International Federation of Operational Research Societies and the host of the open-source initiative for operations research, COIN-OR.
INFORMS members are operations researchers and analytics professionals who work for universities, corporations, consulting groups, military, the government, and health care. Many are academics who teach operations research, management science, analytics, and the quantitative sciences in engineering and business schools. INFORMS members come from nearly 90 countries throughout the world. INFORMS includes masters- and Ph.D.-level members, as well as students working toward their degrees: Membership levels are regular member, student member, and retired member.
The INFORMS Roundtable[1] includes institutional members from operations research departments at major organizations.
Publications
INFORMS[2] publishes scholarly journals, including its flagship journals Operations Research and Management Science; and INFORMS Transactions on Education, an online-only, open-access journal.[3]
INFORMS also publishes OR/MS Today, the membership magazine; Analytics, the industry magazine; and OR/MS Tomorrow, the student membership magazine.
The list of INFORMS journals includes:
- Decision Analysis
- Information Systems Research
- INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics (formerly Interfaces)
- INFORMS Journal on Computing
- INFORMS Journal on Optimization
- INFORMS Transactions on Education
- Management Science
- Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (M&SOM)
- Marketing Science
- Mathematics of Operations Research
- Operations Research
- Organization Science
- Service Science
- Stochastic Systems
- Strategy Science
- Transportation Science
All INFORMS scholarly journals are peer-reviewed.
Awards
INFORMS bestows many prizes[4] to recognize superior achievements in practice, publishing, and teaching, and to acknowledge those who have made outstanding contributions to the profession. Among those are:
- Franz Edelman Award for Achievement in Operations Research and the Management Sciences,[5] which recognizes outstanding high-level O.R. and advanced analytics practice
- The Daniel H. Wagner Prize for Excellence in Operations Research Practice
- Frederick W. Lanchester Prize for the best contribution to O.R. published in English
- John von Neumann Theory Prize
- Philip McCord Morse Lectureship Award