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
Giandomenico M
(2008)
An application of the Lovász-Schrijver M(K, K) operator to the stable set problem
in Mathematical Programming
Giandomenico M
(2011)
Integer Programming and Combinatoral Optimization
Glazebrook K
(2011)
General notions of indexability for queueing control and asset management
in The Annals of Applied Probability
Glazebrook K
(2016)
Monotone Policies and Indexability for Bidirectional Restless Bandits
in Advances in Applied Probability
Glazebrook K
(2009)
Index Policies for the Admission Control and Routing of Impatient Customers to Heterogeneous Service Stations
in Operations Research
Glazebrook K
(2009)
A Generalized Gittins Index for a Class of Multiarmed Bandits with General Resource Requirements
in Mathematics of Operations Research
Grothey A
(2012)
Approximate dynamic programming with Bézier Curves/Surfaces for Top-percentile Traffic Routing
in European Journal of Operational Research
Harwood K
(2017)
Investigating the use of metaheuristics for solving single vehicle routing problems with time-varying traversal costs
in Journal of the Operational Research Society
He F
(2014)
A two-stage stochastic mixed-integer program modelling and hybrid solution approach to portfolio selection problems
in Information Sciences
Hodge D
(2011)
Dynamic resource allocation in a multi-product make-to-stock production system
in Queueing Systems
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 |