Research Clusters

Last Updated on Tuesday, 17 November 2009 15:47

The research is divided into a variety of themes each with an associated cluster. These are currently as follows:

Green Logistics

Coordinator: Richard Eglese, Lancaster University.

This theme is concerned with the challenges to O.R. posed by the production and distribution of goods in a sustainable way, taking account of environmental and social factors.

Healthcare

Coordinator: Jeff Griffiths. Cardiff University.

Many healthcare issues generate extremely complex O.R. problems or, more accurately, a complex interaction of several complex O.R. problems. Little progress has been made in understanding such interactions. This will be the focus of this research cluster.

Transport

Coordinator: Chris Potts, Southampton University.

The programme will aim to move beyond the simple models of the current state of the art to build and theoretically analyse models which capture real world complexity.

Optimisation

Coordinator: Adam Letchford, Lancaster University.

Discrete optimisation is concerned with problems in which some or all of the variables are restricted to take values from a finite set. Non-linear optimisation, on the other hand, is concerned with continuous problems in which the objective function and/or constraints are non-linear. The purpose of this research cluster is to develop further links between the two fields.

Heuristic Understanding

Coordinator: Andrew Parkes, University of Nottingham

This research cluster aims to underpin the underlying theory concerning the differential effectiveness of alternative approaches to offer deeper general insights.

Systems to Build Systems

Coordinator: Edmund Burke, University of Nottingham

The current state of the art in the development of decision support system methodologies is focused around the human design of bespoke systems, which are specifically tailored to the particular problem solving environment in hand. The goal of this research cluster is to support the development of automated systems to build and design search methodologies.