Operations Research

This group results from the former "OR Centre", Operational Research (CIO), that was based in the Faculty of Science, University of Lisbon, was created in January 1994 with the purpose of promoting and fostering the research activity in the field of Operational Research. In 2012 the Unit had 47 integrated researchers with a PhD and 21 young members, in their majority as PhD students. The Unit had a Scientific Coordinator, a Scientific Committee composed by all the PhD researchers, an Executive Board (four members of the Scientific Committee selected by the Scientific Coordinator) and a secretariat. The Scientific Coordinator, elected for a three-year term, whom represented the Unit and supervised both the Executive Board and the Scientific Committee. The Scientific Committee met at least twice a year to decide and approve strategic and financial meters of the Unit. Extraordinary meetings proposed by a member of the Scientific

Committee were also scheduled. The Executive Board conceived and designed the Unit strategic plan, the Unit annual report and administers the Unit's funds. The Centre was involved in the program Ciência 2008 with 1 researcher hired.

For the merging with CMAF, the Portuguese institutions involved in the new OR Group include the recently created University of Lisbon (with members from Faculdade de Ciências, Instituto Superior de Agronomia and Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão) and Instituto Superior de Contabilidade e Administração de Coimbra.

The research topics of the OR "group" have been based on the following guideline:

• To strengthen the research on Combinatorial Optimization / Discrete and Network Optimization, which are the áreas that encompass the major topics of research, and which, in turn, include research works that have been considered as a reference of the Centre.

• To look at emerging areas such as Decision Support Systems, Multicriteria Optimization, Optimization in Finance, Neural Networks and Prediction and Stochastic Optimization that are becoming more relevant in the context of Operational Research applications.

• To link theory and practice, such as Graph Theory and Integer Programming with relevant application in areas such as Biology, Chemistry, Forest Management, Health, Transport and Telecommunications.

• To promote the formation of PhD and master students To further develop the "pure" / "applied" research as well as the formation of new students, the OR group activities have included: Collaborations with Services and the Industry - members of the group have maintained and initiated new collaborations with industry, such as the Consortium SAFE PORT, fostered by NATO under the Programme "Defence Against Terrorism", the protocols between the FCUL and public institutions (DGS and Carris de Ferro de Lisboa);

Internationalization - members of the group have played an important role in the leadership of international research groups. These "positions" with a positive impact on the international visibility of the centre, impel the Centre to participate in the organization of international scientific events, such as scientific schools and conferences. In particular, it is to highlight some successful events, such as the scientific Winter Schools on "Network Optimization", Netopt2009, Netopt2011 and Netopt2013. In addition, next 2014, some members of the Centre will play an important role (chairing or co-chairing) in organizing international conferences in Lisbon, namely in the INFORMS-TELECOM, the "International Symposium in Combinatorial Optimization", the "Computational Management Science " and the "Operations Research

Applied to Health Services".