Bulletin 106, September 99 

Much of the debate about the role of national societies within EURO focuses on the issues and concerns relating to small national societies. The situation in the UK is some what different, as the Society is the second or third largest in the world (depending on how you categorise the Japanese Society) and has approaching 3000 members. This year the Society is celebrating its 50th Anniversary, pre-dating the other societies, and the Journal of the Operational Research Society is the longest established OR journal with an impact ranking the highest internationally outside North America.

Nevertheless, many of the challenges facing the UK Society, are by no means dissimilar to those facing the other European Societies. The Society has had a fairly wide range of activities throughout its life, with this year's Annual Conference being the 40th, and other activities including study groups, regional societies and various short events. In addition to JORS the Society publishes a monthly newsletter and OR Insight a more practitioner focused journal. A major challenge facing the Society is how to engage the UK practitioners who make up more that half the societies membership. Historically there was a strong practitioner base in the nationalised industries, such as British Coal, British Steel and British Gas. These OR Groups had a tradition of engagement in the Society with their members giving outstanding service. They saw dissemination of practice an important part of their role and indeed many of them moved into Universities with the establishment of University groups during the 1960's. The scene now is rather different with the large groups having closed, although many were transferred into consultancies. Amongst the largest OR groups in the UK now are the consultancies KPMG and Cap Gemini, whilst amongst the more traditional groups British Airways has become pre-eminent. The change in the practitioner scene has also been accompanied by a change in culture. The practitioner no longer sees participating in the societies activities as an end in itself, but the participation has got to be seen to be in line with their professional duties. One affect of the increased pressure on practitioners is the necessity to focus on their current interests, so turning up regularly at the regional society to hear talks from all aspects of operational research is now rarely seen as an appropriate way to spend time. The study groups might thus be seen as more appropriate vehicles, but perhaps the study groups are a little bit too technique or traditionally orientated and not addressing current agenda. The Journal is seen as being too academic although OR Insight and the Newsletter are received more favourably by practitioners.

The increased pressures on life apply also to academics and as a result it is becoming increasingly difficult to get people to spend their time helping organising conferences, short events and the like. The Society having seen itself as a disseminating and participative society is thus having to re-examine its raison d'être. The shorter conference and more focused one day events might enhance participation, but the other avenue of activity is presented by the challenge of the Internet. If people have less time to travel to events, then virtual events might at least partially replace the real networking of the past.

The Societies 'Live OR' Website has undergone considerable development in the past 12 months. It provides information about existing activities, includes a members forum, is developing an information service and lists advanced copies of articles to appear in the newsletter. There is also a major debate in the Society about the impact on the Journal of the Society of the move to electronic journals.

If practitioners are moving away from participative models of the society then accrediting practice might be an obvious development. Last year the society had a vote whether to introduce a category of professional membership. In a low poll approaching 70% voted in favour of professional membership, but the Articles of Association required a 75% majority for the vote to carry. A debating point over the coming months will be whether to introduce some form of qualification, perhaps linked to continuing professional development. In the UK professional qualifications are common, but internationally Operations Research seems to have shied away. The argument against professional membership is that you have to define the subject with a danger that it becomes ossified. We are likely to continue to search for a way forward on this issue for some time to come. Perhaps connected to this issue is the future of Masters Programmes in the UK. At present the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council providesstudentships to fund one year Masters Programmes and this has proved a valuable source for well qualified entrants to the OR profession. This funding is threatened, and may be diverted into training packages which could well support continuing professional development.

Although self sufficient the UK members have nevertheless continued to be active in both EURO and IFORS and I am sure this will continue into the future. There are many issues facing operational research in Europe and although the UK Society is perhaps a little different to the smaller societies, nevertheless I am sure that many of the issues facing us in the UK will be seen as being similar to those throughout Europe. I am confident that we have the capabilities to face the challenge in front of us.

Prof. Robert DYSON
Warwick Business School,
University of Warwick,
GB - Coventry CV4 7AL (United Kingdom)

Tel: +44 1203 52 35 23
Fax: +44 1203 52 45 39
orsrd@razor.wbs.warwick.ac.uk

This article has been published in the AIROnews n°4/98, and is part of an AIRO initiative taken after the meeting of national ORS Presidents during the EURO Conference in Barcelona, July 1997.