Operational research in seven decades

This paper is an account and reflection on the author’s engagement with operational research (OR) starting in the 60s with work in the glass industry coinciding with a PhD at Lancaster and a first encounter with the professional membership debate. The 70s included a brief encounter with stochastic programming, soft OR which recurred throughout the decades, and the start of research into strategy support. The latter continued in the 80s and beyond and work on data envelopment analysis (DEA) began. In the 90s, a strong DEA team was built at Warwick, and the author led the development of the Society's fellowship scheme. In 2000s a group met regularly at Warwick focussing on strategic development and leading to a book on strategy support, and EJOR editing began. In the 2010s editing continued and work began on the contribution of the founders of OR to soft OR and practice. Editing wound down in the 2020s and the founders paper was published in the journal Operations Research.