IFORS Prize for OR in Development 2014 – Third Call for Papers

IFORS is pleased to announce that the Prize will be awarded during the 20th Triennial conference on “The Art of Modeling” to be held in Barcelona, Spain from 13-18 July 2014.

This competition has been held for over 25 years, and recognizes outstanding and relevant OR work carried out in developing countries.
* Awarded at the close of the IFORS Triennial Conference and carries with it a grand prize of US$ 4,000.00 and a runner-up prize of US$ 2,000.00
* The finalist papers are automatically considered for publication in the IFORS Publication, International Transactions in Operational Research (ITOR). Publication is contingent upon the usual refereeing process. Authors of these papers agree that the first right to publish their papers lies with ITOR; as such, they will not publish the same until and unless they receive permission to do so by the ITOR editor.

Topic of paper

• The paper should describe a practical OR application in a developing country, conducted to assist a specific organization in its decision-making process with regard to education, health, and other basic services, water, technology, resource use (physical or financial), infrastructure, agricultural/industrialization, natural resources, or environmental sustainability. It should also contain original features in methodology and/or implementation in developing countries.
• The paper should include some description of: the application’s social context, how the project succeeded despite constraints and limited resources, and particularly its impact on the decision making process or on the organization for which it was conducted. Where appropriate, the relevance of the country’s state of development to the study should be addressed. A stress on developmental issues will be an important factor in the judging.
• Papers of a purely technical nature, or those, which have no relevance in the developmental context, will not be considered.

Judging Criteria

• Qualifying papers will be evaluated on the following criteria: problem definition, creativity and appropriateness
• of approach, MS/OR content, stress on developmental issues, innovative methodology, impact of the study,
• paper organization and structure, and quality of written and (if selected as finalist) oral presentation.
• Participation of local researchers will also be a judging criteria.

Other Information

• Principal authors and presenters of any nationality are welcome. If selected to be among the finalists, the entry must be presented by one of the principal authors during the IFORS Triennial Conference to be held in Barcelona, Spain from 13-18 July 2014.
• Finalists’ registration fees will be sponsored by IFORS. For finalists who are nationals of developing countries, a grant for living expenses may be requested but cannot be guaranteed.
• Entry must be submitted using the submission site for the IFORS journal, International Transactions on Operations Research (ITOR) http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/itor, indicating in the cover letter that it is intended for this competition. At this point, authors warrant that their paper submissions have not or will be published in another journal. ITOR Editor Celso Ribeiro will forward the papers submitted to the Chair. When the finalists are announced, only finalist papers will be considered as formal submissions to ITOR.
• An international panel of judges chaired by Andres Weintraub, Chile, has been formed

Further inquiries should be sent directly to the Prize Chair:

Prof. Andres Weintraub
Professor Department of Industrial Engineering
University of Chile
P.O. Box 2777
Santiago, Chile
E-mail: aweintra@dii.uchile.cl

Last date of submission of the full paper: November 30, 2013
Finalists will be notified by: February 28, 2014
Date of presentations: July 14, 2014