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The founding of EURO The Association of European Operational Research Societies within IFORS
ELSEVIER
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF OPERATIONAL RESEARCH European Journal of Operational Research 87 (1995) 404-407
The founding of EURO The Association of European Operational Research Societies within IFORS H.-J. Zimmermann
*
RWTH Aachen, Germany
1. The founding environment It might help to understand the motivation for and the founding process of EURO better, if first a few remarks describing the environment at that time are made. It was the first half of the 70's! Traffic, communication facilities, professional life differed considerably from what we are accustomed now-a-days.
1.1. Physical environment Some of the younger members of EURO may probably find it difficult to imagine an environment in which the traffic can be characterized as follows: Scheduled ship traffic was still the cheapest way to go to the USA (5-13 days one way). Hardly any wide bodied planes did exist, but still "Super Constellations" (which took up to 24 hours one way, if you went the cheap way via Iceland, and you had to land in between). Computerized booking and reservation systems for the airlines were at the very beginning; i.e. a took a while before one was told whether a travel involving several airlines would be possible. Passport stamping or even visa were necessary at each European border; it could take quite while to get through immigration and customs. * President of EURO 1975-1978.
There was one advantage, however: no security checks were necessary at the airports because hijacking and that type of today's terrorism had not yet started. That saved some time (particularly if you wanted to go to Israel).
1.2. Communication There were no fax machines, there was no cable or satellite TV. Electronic mail was still very far in the future! Courier services (such as Federal Express etc.) were unknown. Text processing did not exist, and except telephone and telex there were no means of fast communication available. So communication was based on typing, and if one had to write to 20 persons, one really had to type 20 letters. One postal communication the took one to two weeks, if the receiver reacted immediately.
1.3. Professional environment Some of the journals of this time still exist: Management Science, Operations Research. Other journals have changed, such as the Operational Research Quarterly, and, of course, there were (small) national OR journals and American journals. European OR societies also existed. But these were all national societies between which there was hardly any communication. In the USA there existed the large and dominating professional societies: The Institute
0377-2217/95/$09.50 (~) 1995 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved SSDI 0377-2217(95)00209-X
H.-J. Zimmermann/European Journal of Operational Research 87 (1995) 404-407 of Management Science and ORSA, the OR Society of America with together approximately 8 000-10 000 members. The situation in Europe looked as follows: Belgium Denmark Finland France Germany Great Britain Greece Ireland Italy Netherlands Norway Spain Sweden Switzerland
300 300 250 1000 800 3200 200 150 600 500 300 200 600 200
(?)
The reader will already have noticed that it was still the time of the Cold War and the Iron Curtain, i.e. the (European) world ended at the Iron Curtain and hardly anything was known about OR in Eastern European countries. Traveling from and to these countries was anyway almost impossible. Since hardly any communication existed among the European societies, the best way to get to know something about OR in another European country was to write or to go to the USA and to ask. Conferences Conferences could have been a means to meet professionally. But there were no European Conferences. There were national conferences to which hardly any person from another European country came, because nobody outside the respective country knew of this event. IFORS conferences took place every three years, but most of the time outside Europe. IFORS at least then - was primarily known to the members of the boards of the OR societies and the individual OR people knew little about it. One reason for this was certainly that IFORS had "to take care of" many OR societies worldwide (it has now 25 member societies), and that IFORS at that time did not have any territorial substructure. This started with EURO. In addition there were, of course, the international TIMS
405
conferences which took place worldwide, but again rather seldom in Europe. In Europe we had at least 12-15 relevant languages. English was by far not as popular as today. The professional attitude on the European continent was characterized by the urge of people working in OR to justify the existence of OR as distinct from mathematics. The first wave of disappointment about OR (having generated high expectations in industry without really satisfying them) was spreading in industry. Many OR departments were closed or combined with other departments. From the States came the statement (I believe from Ackoff): "OR is dead, just not yet buried".
2. The birth process
On August 23, 1972, the Presidents of the European OR societies met in the framework of the IFORS Conference in Dublin, Ireland, for a few hours and discussed the situation of OR in Europe. They agreed that it was sub-optimal and that something should be done. A second meeting should be called for. Under the given conditions it took quite a while to find a date and a location where this meeting could take place. On September 3 and 4, 1973, the Representatives of eleven European OR societies (Belgium, Denmark, Great Britain, France, Finland, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Western Germany) met in Dtisseldorf, Germany, for a day and a night. The atmosphere was very invigorating, the discussions intensive and optimistic and the following results could be achieved: 1. Reports on each single OR society shall be prepared and exchanged. 2. National societies shall decide on whether they agree on a European coordinating body that should meet three times in two years. 3. National societies should decide whether they want European meetings and whether they are prepared to host them. 4. The national bulletins together with a 2-3 page translation shall be mailed to each of the representatives. 5. Lists of national working groups shall be exchanged.
406
H.-J. Zimmermann/ European Journal of Operational Research 87 (1995) 404-407
6. The national societies shall decide whether European working groups shall be started. By November 1973 all societies had agreed to all these points and the President of IFORS was asked to approve and support these European activities. On May 3 and 4, 1974, the representatives of eight countries and IFORS met for two days in Amsterdam, with the following results: 1. They decided to organize the First European Conference for OR in January 1975 in Brussels. The Belgian Society, of which Jan-Pierre Brans and Marc Roubens had already hinted at the Dtisseldorf meeting that they might be able to organize a European conference, has already been able to obtain some subsidies. Six societies (Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, Norway, Netherlands, Sweden) provide credits to finance the preparatory costs of the Conference. The discussion about a possible profit is postponed until after the conference. 2. The delegates consider European working groups as one of the most effective ways to improve communications in Europe. Preparations for their setup at the Conference are started. 3. Various ways of increasing communication in Europe which were already discussed in Dtisseldorf were confirmed. In addition, two activities were envisaged: A European Journal for Operational Research; A European Secretariat. 4. The delegates agreed to create a more formal framework for future co-operation. This should first be limited to OR societies in Western Europe that are members of IFORS but it shall be open to other societies later. A first agreement is worked out by the delegates and taken home to have it discussed by their societies. Prof. Zimmermann shall try to get the approval of the Societies before the Conference, in order to start the Association at the Conference. -
-
On January 27, 1975, a cold and rainy Monday, theFirst European Operations Research Conference started in the Sheraton Hotel in Brussels with about 500 participants. The spirit was overwhelming, language barriers did not seem to exist. Due to the weather and the conference facilities participants only had two choices: listen to presentations in the lecture rooms or
communicate with other OR people in the center hall of the hotel. The result was very encouraging. The first European Working Groups were started and at the very festive and impressive Final Session the draft of the agreement was signed by the Representatives of ten European OR Societies (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Ireland, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland). Of this agreement - for reasons of space - only the Preamble shall be cited here, because it describes best the spirit of the discussions and the prevailing attitudes:
"In the belief that the purpose of Operational Research is to improve the well-being of people by improving the relevance and effectiveness of the institutions and organizations which serve them; that it seeks to do so by means of the rational methods of science exercised by representatives of diverse disciplines working together, each supporting the others; that this co-operation which respects no boundaries between disciplines should respect no boundaries between people; and that the Operational Research Societies of Europe should more closely co-operate one with another to further the theory and practice of Operational Research; we, the authorized representatives of our several societies make this Agreement to establish the European Association for Operational Research."
On January 29 and 30, 1975, the Provisional Council of EURO met for the first time right after the Final Session of EURO I and decides: 1. To form a Constitutional Committee. 2. To accept the offer of the Belgian Society to give all the profits of EURO I to EURO. 3. To start the first seven Working Groups. 4. To accept gladly the offer of Prof. Brans to start tentatively a EURO Bulletin. 5. Even though there were severe reservations against a European OR journal, it was agreed to form a working party under the chairmanship of Prof. Tilanus in order to investigate the details of a possible European journal and report back to the Council.
H.-J. Zimmermann/European Journal of OperationalResearch 87 (1995) 404-407 OnMarch 8, 1976, the Honorary Secretary of EURO, R.T. Eddison, declared in a letter distributed to the societies: "1 hereby declare that the Association of European Operational Research Societies within 1FORS is now formally constituted with effect from 5 March
407
1976 and the draft Statutes circulated on 29 June 1975 are effective." This started EURO with very little money, the tools of EURO K conferences, European Working Groups, a EURO Bulletin, a party working on a European OR journal and lots of enthusiasm.
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF OPERATIONAL RESEARCH European Journal of Operational Research 87 (1995) 404-407
The founding of EURO The Association of European Operational Research Societies within IFORS H.-J. Zimmermann
*
RWTH Aachen, Germany
1. The founding environment It might help to understand the motivation for and the founding process of EURO better, if first a few remarks describing the environment at that time are made. It was the first half of the 70's! Traffic, communication facilities, professional life differed considerably from what we are accustomed now-a-days.
1.1. Physical environment Some of the younger members of EURO may probably find it difficult to imagine an environment in which the traffic can be characterized as follows: Scheduled ship traffic was still the cheapest way to go to the USA (5-13 days one way). Hardly any wide bodied planes did exist, but still "Super Constellations" (which took up to 24 hours one way, if you went the cheap way via Iceland, and you had to land in between). Computerized booking and reservation systems for the airlines were at the very beginning; i.e. a took a while before one was told whether a travel involving several airlines would be possible. Passport stamping or even visa were necessary at each European border; it could take quite while to get through immigration and customs. * President of EURO 1975-1978.
There was one advantage, however: no security checks were necessary at the airports because hijacking and that type of today's terrorism had not yet started. That saved some time (particularly if you wanted to go to Israel).
1.2. Communication There were no fax machines, there was no cable or satellite TV. Electronic mail was still very far in the future! Courier services (such as Federal Express etc.) were unknown. Text processing did not exist, and except telephone and telex there were no means of fast communication available. So communication was based on typing, and if one had to write to 20 persons, one really had to type 20 letters. One postal communication the took one to two weeks, if the receiver reacted immediately.
1.3. Professional environment Some of the journals of this time still exist: Management Science, Operations Research. Other journals have changed, such as the Operational Research Quarterly, and, of course, there were (small) national OR journals and American journals. European OR societies also existed. But these were all national societies between which there was hardly any communication. In the USA there existed the large and dominating professional societies: The Institute
0377-2217/95/$09.50 (~) 1995 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved SSDI 0377-2217(95)00209-X
H.-J. Zimmermann/European Journal of Operational Research 87 (1995) 404-407 of Management Science and ORSA, the OR Society of America with together approximately 8 000-10 000 members. The situation in Europe looked as follows: Belgium Denmark Finland France Germany Great Britain Greece Ireland Italy Netherlands Norway Spain Sweden Switzerland
300 300 250 1000 800 3200 200 150 600 500 300 200 600 200
(?)
The reader will already have noticed that it was still the time of the Cold War and the Iron Curtain, i.e. the (European) world ended at the Iron Curtain and hardly anything was known about OR in Eastern European countries. Traveling from and to these countries was anyway almost impossible. Since hardly any communication existed among the European societies, the best way to get to know something about OR in another European country was to write or to go to the USA and to ask. Conferences Conferences could have been a means to meet professionally. But there were no European Conferences. There were national conferences to which hardly any person from another European country came, because nobody outside the respective country knew of this event. IFORS conferences took place every three years, but most of the time outside Europe. IFORS at least then - was primarily known to the members of the boards of the OR societies and the individual OR people knew little about it. One reason for this was certainly that IFORS had "to take care of" many OR societies worldwide (it has now 25 member societies), and that IFORS at that time did not have any territorial substructure. This started with EURO. In addition there were, of course, the international TIMS
405
conferences which took place worldwide, but again rather seldom in Europe. In Europe we had at least 12-15 relevant languages. English was by far not as popular as today. The professional attitude on the European continent was characterized by the urge of people working in OR to justify the existence of OR as distinct from mathematics. The first wave of disappointment about OR (having generated high expectations in industry without really satisfying them) was spreading in industry. Many OR departments were closed or combined with other departments. From the States came the statement (I believe from Ackoff): "OR is dead, just not yet buried".
2. The birth process
On August 23, 1972, the Presidents of the European OR societies met in the framework of the IFORS Conference in Dublin, Ireland, for a few hours and discussed the situation of OR in Europe. They agreed that it was sub-optimal and that something should be done. A second meeting should be called for. Under the given conditions it took quite a while to find a date and a location where this meeting could take place. On September 3 and 4, 1973, the Representatives of eleven European OR societies (Belgium, Denmark, Great Britain, France, Finland, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Western Germany) met in Dtisseldorf, Germany, for a day and a night. The atmosphere was very invigorating, the discussions intensive and optimistic and the following results could be achieved: 1. Reports on each single OR society shall be prepared and exchanged. 2. National societies shall decide on whether they agree on a European coordinating body that should meet three times in two years. 3. National societies should decide whether they want European meetings and whether they are prepared to host them. 4. The national bulletins together with a 2-3 page translation shall be mailed to each of the representatives. 5. Lists of national working groups shall be exchanged.
406
H.-J. Zimmermann/ European Journal of Operational Research 87 (1995) 404-407
6. The national societies shall decide whether European working groups shall be started. By November 1973 all societies had agreed to all these points and the President of IFORS was asked to approve and support these European activities. On May 3 and 4, 1974, the representatives of eight countries and IFORS met for two days in Amsterdam, with the following results: 1. They decided to organize the First European Conference for OR in January 1975 in Brussels. The Belgian Society, of which Jan-Pierre Brans and Marc Roubens had already hinted at the Dtisseldorf meeting that they might be able to organize a European conference, has already been able to obtain some subsidies. Six societies (Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, Norway, Netherlands, Sweden) provide credits to finance the preparatory costs of the Conference. The discussion about a possible profit is postponed until after the conference. 2. The delegates consider European working groups as one of the most effective ways to improve communications in Europe. Preparations for their setup at the Conference are started. 3. Various ways of increasing communication in Europe which were already discussed in Dtisseldorf were confirmed. In addition, two activities were envisaged: A European Journal for Operational Research; A European Secretariat. 4. The delegates agreed to create a more formal framework for future co-operation. This should first be limited to OR societies in Western Europe that are members of IFORS but it shall be open to other societies later. A first agreement is worked out by the delegates and taken home to have it discussed by their societies. Prof. Zimmermann shall try to get the approval of the Societies before the Conference, in order to start the Association at the Conference. -
-
On January 27, 1975, a cold and rainy Monday, theFirst European Operations Research Conference started in the Sheraton Hotel in Brussels with about 500 participants. The spirit was overwhelming, language barriers did not seem to exist. Due to the weather and the conference facilities participants only had two choices: listen to presentations in the lecture rooms or
communicate with other OR people in the center hall of the hotel. The result was very encouraging. The first European Working Groups were started and at the very festive and impressive Final Session the draft of the agreement was signed by the Representatives of ten European OR Societies (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Ireland, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland). Of this agreement - for reasons of space - only the Preamble shall be cited here, because it describes best the spirit of the discussions and the prevailing attitudes:
"In the belief that the purpose of Operational Research is to improve the well-being of people by improving the relevance and effectiveness of the institutions and organizations which serve them; that it seeks to do so by means of the rational methods of science exercised by representatives of diverse disciplines working together, each supporting the others; that this co-operation which respects no boundaries between disciplines should respect no boundaries between people; and that the Operational Research Societies of Europe should more closely co-operate one with another to further the theory and practice of Operational Research; we, the authorized representatives of our several societies make this Agreement to establish the European Association for Operational Research."
On January 29 and 30, 1975, the Provisional Council of EURO met for the first time right after the Final Session of EURO I and decides: 1. To form a Constitutional Committee. 2. To accept the offer of the Belgian Society to give all the profits of EURO I to EURO. 3. To start the first seven Working Groups. 4. To accept gladly the offer of Prof. Brans to start tentatively a EURO Bulletin. 5. Even though there were severe reservations against a European OR journal, it was agreed to form a working party under the chairmanship of Prof. Tilanus in order to investigate the details of a possible European journal and report back to the Council.
H.-J. Zimmermann/European Journal of OperationalResearch 87 (1995) 404-407 OnMarch 8, 1976, the Honorary Secretary of EURO, R.T. Eddison, declared in a letter distributed to the societies: "1 hereby declare that the Association of European Operational Research Societies within 1FORS is now formally constituted with effect from 5 March
407
1976 and the draft Statutes circulated on 29 June 1975 are effective." This started EURO with very little money, the tools of EURO K conferences, European Working Groups, a EURO Bulletin, a party working on a European OR journal and lots of enthusiasm.