Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences

INFORMS is governed by a board of directors[1] which includes a president, past president, president-elect, secretary, treasurer, executive director, and vice presidents for chapters and fora, education, information technology, international activities, meetings, membership and professional recognition, practice, publications, sections and societies, and marketing and outreach.

INFORMS members are operations researchers and analytics professionals who work for universities, corporations, consulting groups, military, the government, and health care. Many are academics who teach operations research, management science, analytics, and the quantitative sciences in engineering and business schools. INFORMS members come from nearly 90 countries throughout the world. INFORMS includes masters- and Ph.D.-level members, as well as students working toward their degrees: Membership levels are regular member, student member, and retired member.

The INFORMS Roundtable[2] includes institutional members from operations research departments at major organizations.

Members of INFORMS specialize in operations research and analytics sub-fields such as applied probability, artificial intelligence, decision analysis, financial engineering, information systems, linear programming, logistics, non-linear programming, optimization, simulation, stochastic programming, and yield management.

INFORMS[3] publishes scholarly journals, including its flagship journals Operations Research and Management Science; and INFORMS Transactions on Education, an online-only, open-access journal.[4]

INFORMS also publishes OR/MS Today, the membership magazine; Analytics, the industry magazine; and OR/MS Tomorrow, the student membership magazine.

The list of INFORMS journals includes:

• Decision Analysis
• Information Systems Research
• INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics (formerly Interfaces)
• INFORMS Journal on Computing
• INFORMS Journal on Optimization
• INFORMS Transactions on Education
• Management Science
• Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (M&SOM)
• Marketing Science
• Mathematics of Operations Research
• Operations Research
• Organization Science
• Service Science
• Stochastic Systems
• Strategy Science
• Transportation Science

All INFORMS scholarly journals are peer-reviewed.

INFORMS bestows many prizes[5] to recognize superior achievements in practice, publishing, and teaching, and to acknowledge those who have made outstanding contributions to the profession. Prizes include:

• INFORMS Fellow "Fellows are examples of outstanding lifetime achievement in operations research and the management sciences. They have demonstrated exceptional accomplishments and made significant contributions to the advancement of OR/MS over a period of time".
• Decision Analysis Publication Award
• Frank P. Ramsey Medal, the highest award of the Decision Analysis Society
• Franz Edelman Award for Achievement in Operations Research and the Management Sciences,[6] which recognizes outstanding high-level O.R. and advanced analytics practice
• The Daniel H. Wagner Prize for Excellence in Operations Research Practice
• Frederick W. Lanchester Prize for the best contribution to O.R. published in English
• George B. Dantzig Dissertation Award
• George E. Kimball Medal for distinguished service
• George E. Nicholson Student Paper Competition
• Saul Gass Expository Writing Award
• INFORMS Impact Prize for contributions that have had a broad impact on the field
• INFORMS President's Award to an individual for important contributions to INFORMS and the profession
• INFORMS Prize, for effective integration of operations research into an organization
• INFORMS Prize for the Teaching of OR/MS Practice
• John von Neumann Theory Prize
• INFORMS Computing Society Prize
• Philip McCord Morse Lectureship Award
• Seth Bonder Scholarship for Applied Operations Research in Military Applications [7][8]
• Seth Bonder Scholarship for Applied Operations Research in Health Services
• The Omega Rho Distinguished Lecture Series

INFORMS communities/subdivisions also honor members, with over 35 prizes and awards.

Career

INFORMS offers analytics certification to help advance the use of analytics by setting agreed upon standards for the profession and promoting continued competency for practitioners.

INFORMS has a Career Center that matches employers and members who are job seekers. The yearly highlight takes place at the society's Annual Meeting, where employers have the opportunity to meet job candidates and members are able to advance their careers.

Education

INFORMS sponsors many educational and training programs, including the podcasts and videos, INFORMS Forum on Education, Junior Faculty Interest Group Forum, case and teaching materials, multimedia resources, a Speakers Program, a listing of O.R. graduate and undergraduate programs, and a teacher training program for high school math teachers.

INFORMS Communities

Also known as subdivisions - are important, independent bodies that unite members into local regional groups, focus on special technical interests, and provide the backbone for the organization. Many members belong to more than one group. Communities sponsor conferences, regular meetings, sessions at annual meetings, educational programs, and awards; some provide professional journals and resource publications. INFORMS communities include societies, special interest sections, local and student chapters, forums, a special student honors society, and a Round Table whose members are representatives of O.R. departments at major organizations.

Meetings

Meetings provide scholars and practitioners with the opportunity to exchange information, ideas, and perspectives with their colleagues. INFORMS offers an annual meeting, a conference on the practice of analytics and operations research, international meetings, and special interest group meetings.