It is one of these mega-conferences, ALIO meeting Informs. But it is a conference with passion, for football at least. The opening keynote started with discussing scheduling problems in Brazilian football, suitably donning a Brazil T-shirt. And there were many more sports-related OR sessions to follow. Apart from health care ones, humanitarian ones etc. as well as all the traditional problems revisited. Or, discussed as to how they will develop in the next 20 years. ¡Olé!
Gyöngyi
A number of universities came together to organise a conference on corporate responsibility that would attract scholars from a variety of disciplines. Not surprisingly, it also has a supply chain management stream. Check out the CR3 conference here – and come to Helsinki in April 2011 (Apr 8-9). Abstract deadline Nov 15, 2010
Gyöngyi
Worthwhile to add to the list of academic logistics conferences are the ones on military logistics. The next military logistics symposium will be arranged in Helsinki in Dec 2010 – see the official website and call for papers here. A special issue on defence logistics is following soon after. Deadlines: Aug 27, 2010 for the conference, and Jan 31, 2011 for the special issue.
Gyöngyi
PS Well noted at Sotatieteiden päivät.
ICIL gathers a renown but very small crowd on the topic of “industrial logistics” – as to say, mostly OR. The format is sthg to be worked on but the topics are very wide spread. Next time again in 2012 in Croatia.
Gyöngyi
PS Relevant CFPs for industrial logisticians can be found on the ICIIL blog.
Posted in Conferences, Logistics
What do SCM conference themes reflect? Current research topics, global concerns, the organising committee’s own research focus? Some time ago, Árni wondered whether conference themes mattered. At that time, as again in 2010, NOFOMA had no theme (neither does RIRL). Only EUROMA 2010 is “managing operations in service economies”. Otherwise, a look into future conferences shows a concern for the future.
Such as: CSCMP (Europe) is “preparing for the future” and “getting your supply chain ready for tomorrow”, while ISL wants to “configure next generation supply chains”, the German Heinz Nixdorf Symposium is “changing paradigms” for “advanced manufacturing and sustainable logistics”, POMS‘ is concerned with “operations in emerging economies” and IPSERA considers “supply management” to be a “missing link in strategic management”… A bit like the 80s movie trilogy, back to the future 
Gyöngyi
Here we are at the Logistics Research Network conference in Cardiff. This year’s presentations were of outstanding quality. Not surprisingly there was a big green logistics track, with anything from green SCM capabilities to CO2 emissions in cities to transportation emissions represented. Other interesting (or let’s say, unusual ones) were on food supply chains and logistics education. Humanitarian logistics figured again.
A novelty at this conference was a “best poster” award. What a great idea! People had been put down about not getting into the proceedings and “just” presenting a poster. Funny that poster sessions in say, health care, or engineering, are seen as really positive, while at logistics conferences they are less appreciated. But posters have their own place at a conference, for research in its early phase, as well as to find collaborators for new projects. So why don’t SCM academics want to present posters at a conference?
Gyöngyi
- the do’s and don’ts of academic conferences. Here it is again, hopefully in time for e.g. LRN, CSCMP and the new academic year
Gyöngyi
Posted in Conferences, Socks and sandals
“Meet the editors” at Euroma: JOM and (the new) IJOPM editors declared in unison that they were most interested in theory-driven, empirically based papers. In other words, nothing that does not take its parameters at least from an actual empirical study, and nothing that just suggest yet another (consultancy) ‘methodology’. Well, IJOPM did add their quest for more conceptual pieces that would challenge existing frameworks. But while these two are trying to move up in academic quality, rigor, and citation indices, another journal has been introduced with the aim of being a solid “B” journal: OM Review. Though as Andi Smart pointed out, not as if IJOPM had ever rejected a paper with the suggestion to submit it to JOM instead
What else was new? Euroma 2009 had a number of special tracks, but the most overwhelming in number of papers was the one on ops mgmt in healthcare. It ran through the entire conference and even had parallel healthcare sessions.
Gyöngyi
PS Please post the link to OM Review if you find it – I haven’t come across any direct link, just many references to the journal.
The theme of the year is “innovation in logistics”, not entirely surprising at a university where logistics is under the department of entrepreneurship (JIBS’ EMM department). The probably most interesting paper under the theme was on logistics innovation at Mackay memorial hospital. But apart from this, the conference theme could (especially after last year’s “beyond business logistics”) very well be “back to basics”. With some notable exceptions (humanitarian logistics, CSR/sustainability issues) the tracks are most classic: purchasing, logistics strategy, logistics and IT, transport and distribution, logistics modelling and simulation… Is logistics research going back to basics?
Gyöngyi
Posted in Conferences, Nofoma, Socks and sandals
Remember the times when academics met at conferences to discuss the newest results of their research, find collaboration partners, or even just to mingle? It seems these times are over. The latest trend at universities (blame it on the credit crunch, if you like) is to not support conference attendance any more. There is just one catch: presenting a paper at a conference is a first step towards a journal publication, especially if you get good feedback at the conference. And another: you won’t really know much about potential collaboration partners without ever meeting them. It’s not as if “upcoming” projects would ever be found on a website or in journal publications…
There is another problem with the “first step towards a publication” notion: some conference explicitly see their proceedings as publications and do not allow you to send them further to a journal (not even if you really worked on them later).
Will this be the end to academics going to conferences?
Gyöngyi
Posted in Conferences, Socks and sandals
