The LANCS (Lancaster, Nottingham, Cardiff and Southampton) Initiative in Foundational Operational Research: Building Theory for Practice
Lead Research Organisation:
Lancaster University
Department Name: Management Science
Abstract
The United Kingdom is the home of Operational Research (OR) and it maintains an application-oriented research tradition which is both true to its roots and which is also highly distinctive, if not unique. Many industries and public services are the beneficiaries of this effort, not least healthcare, finance, transport and defence. However, the EPSRC/ESRC 2004 International Review of the Research Status of OR in the UK warned that this leading position in applied work in OR could be jeopardised in the absence of a critical mass of researchers developing underpinning theory.In the LANCS (Lancaster, Nottingham, Cardiff, Southampton) initiative, four universities, which have been at the forefront of UK research in OR, have committed to a major expansion of research capacity in its theoretical foundations, supported by the additional resources available as a result of the current Science and Innovation call. The universities concerned have already worked together in the creation of NATCOR, an EPSRC-supported initiative aimed at strengthening doctoral programmes in the mathematics of OR. They have also evidenced their commitment to the subject by recent decisions (in advance of this call) to invest substantially in it.In total, the LANCS initiative will oversee additional new investment of approximately 12M through the five year period of the award, of which more than half comes from the institutions themselves. All the institutions have also committed to sustaining this additional capacity beyond the five year EPSRC funded period. This will have a major impact on the subject. The initiative aims to build and maintain a substantial new national capacity in its theoretical base by establishing this major cross-institutional and multi-disciplinary collaboration. Such a programme is crucial to support the health of the application oriented research which was highlighted as such a strength by the 2004 international review. Indeed, the main motivation of this proposal is to underpin the health of the UK research base in this critically important area. This far sighted initiative aims to establish theoretical advances in the field which are informed by, and which feed into, real applications.
Organisations
Publications
Aas B
(2010)
Management of Logistics Planning
in International Journal of Information Systems and Supply Chain Management
Aas B
(2009)
The role of supply vessels in offshore logistics
in Maritime Economics & Logistics
Aboudi R
(2008)
Inequality comparisons when the populations differ in size
in The Journal of Economic Inequality
Amaral A
(2012)
A polyhedral approach to the single row facility layout problem
in Mathematical Programming
Archibald T
(2009)
Indexability and Index Heuristics for a Simple Class of Inventory Routing Problems
in Operations Research
Argon N
(2009)
DYNAMIC ROUTING OF CUSTOMERS WITH GENERAL DELAY COSTS IN A MULTISERVER QUEUING SYSTEM
in Probability in the Engineering and Informational Sciences
Black D
(2013)
The time-dependent prize-collecting arc routing problem
in Computers & Operations Research
Burer S
(2012)
Unbounded convex sets for non-convex mixed-integer quadratic programming
in Mathematical Programming
Burer S
(2009)
On Nonconvex Quadratic Programming with Box Constraints
in SIAM Journal on Optimization
Burer S
(2012)
Non-convex mixed-integer nonlinear programming: A survey
in Surveys in Operations Research and Management Science
Caprara A
(2011)
Decorous Lower Bounds for Minimum Linear Arrangement
in INFORMS Journal on Computing
Caprara A
(2010)
New techniques for cost sharing in combinatorial optimization games
in Mathematical Programming
Chassioti E
(2017)
Effects of state-dependent balking on multi-server non-stationary queueing systems
in Journal of the Operational Research Society
Chen L
(2011)
Dynamic Pricing and Inventory Control in a Make-to-Stock Queue With Information on the Production Status
in IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering
Crainic T
(2011)
Progressive hedging-based metaheuristics for stochastic network design
in Networks
D J Worthington (Co-Author)
(2010)
Operations research diffusion in healthcare management
in Journal of Health Care Finance
Downing M
(2011)
Forecasting in airforce supply chains
in The International Journal of Logistics Management
Elhag A
(2015)
A grouping hyper-heuristic framework: Application on graph colouring
in Expert Systems with Applications
Feng Y
(2010)
Dynamic coordination of production planning and sales admission control in the presence of a spot market
in Naval Research Logistics (NRL)
Feremans C
(2011)
Generalized network design polyhedra
in Networks
Fetta A
(2018)
Predicting adolescent social networks to stop smoking in secondary schools
in European Journal of Operational Research
Fletcher A
(2009)
What is a 'generic' hospital model?--a comparison of 'generic' and 'specific' hospital models of emergency patient flows.
in Health care management science
Fleten S
(2009)
Optimization in the Energy Industry
Fliege J
(2012)
Operations research in the space industry
in European Journal of Operational Research
Fomeni F
(2014)
A Dynamic Programming Heuristic for the Quadratic Knapsack Problem
in INFORMS Journal on Computing
| Description | The LANCS Initiative has grown research capability in foundational OR in the UK. 22 permanent academic posts (lecturer, senior lecturer and professor) have been established in the four universities (Lancaster, Nottingham, Cardiff and Southampton). Significant progress has been achieved in the six research clusters (Healthcare, Optimisation, Transport and Logistics, Heuristic Understanding, Stochastic Modelling and Systems to Build Systems). For details of collaboration, dissemination and research impact, please refer to the 60-month report at the URL below. |
| Exploitation Route | Please refer to the LANCS Initiative 60-month report at the URL below. Please refer to the LANCS Initiative 60-month report at the URL below. |
| Sectors | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Energy,Environment,Healthcare,Transport |
| URL | http://www.lancs-initiative.ac.uk/page/211/60-Month-Report.htm |
| Description | Impact has been achieved in the following areas: Air transportation Health care Revenue Management Green logistics |
| First Year Of Impact | 2012 |
| Sector | Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Education,Energy,Environment,Healthcare,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology,Retail,Security and Diplomacy,Transport |
| Impact Types | Societal,Economic,Policy & public services |