The LANCS (Lancaster, Nottingham, Cardiff and Southampton) Initiative in Foundational Operational Research: Building Theory for Practice
Lead Research Organisation:
CARDIFF UNIVERSITY
Department Name: Sch of Mathematics
Abstract
The United Kingdom is the home of Operational Research (OR) and itmaintains 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.
People |
ORCID iD |
(Arthur) Russell Davies (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Griffiths J
(2012)
Bed management in a Critical Care Unit
in IMA Journal of Management Mathematics
Griffiths J
(2013)
Modelling activities at a neurological rehabilitation unit
in European Journal of Operational Research
Griffiths J
(2017)
A simulation model of bed-occupancy in a critical care unit
in Journal of Simulation
Griffiths J
(2008)
Approximation to the Transient Solution of the M/E k /1 Queue
in INFORMS Journal on Computing
Knight V
(2012)
Ambulance allocation for maximal survival with heterogeneous outcome measures
in Omega
Knight V
(2013)
Selfish routing in public services
in European Journal of Operational Research
Lewis R
(2010)
A time-dependent metaheuristic algorithm for post enrolment-based course timetabling
in Annals of Operations Research
Lewis R
(2012)
A wide-ranging computational comparison of high-performance graph colouring algorithms
in Computers & Operations Research
Shone R
(2013)
Comparisons between observable and unobservable M/M/1 queues with respect to optimal customer behavior
in European Journal of Operational Research
Song X
(2012)
An incomplete m-exchange algorithm for solving the large-scale multi-scenario knapsack problem
in Computers & Operations Research
Description | LANCS made created significant impact on the effective and efficient use of resources across a range of sectors, including health, transportation, logistics and manufacturing. |
Exploitation Route | LANCS created both industrial and academic benefits, such as development of decision support tools in industry and novel mathematical, computational and OR methods for researchers. |
Sectors | Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Agriculture, Food and Drink,Construction,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Energy,Financial Services, and Management Consultancy,Healthcare,Government, Democracy and Justice,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology,Retail,Security and Diplomacy,Transport |
Description | LANCS research created impact across a range of sectors to advise on the most effective and efficient way to run services and make better decisions. This for example helped companies reduced £M costs or NHS save lives through more effective decision making. Impact covers policy and public services, economic and societal benefits. |
First Year Of Impact | 2010 |
Sector | Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Agriculture, Food and Drink,Construction,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Energy,Environment,Financial Services, and Management Consultancy,Healthcare,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Government, Democracy and Justice,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology,Retail,Security and Diplomacy,Transport |
Impact Types | Societal,Economic,Policy & public services |