Kevin Glazebrook Director, the LANCS Initiative Cumberland Lodge, Windsor Great Park, November 2011

The Science and Innovation Programme The key goal for LANCS: the building of UK research capability in foundational OR The Science and Innovation Theme Day, Birmingham, February Academic appointments: challenges and achievements; 2. Building UK research capability in a sustainable way; 3. Significant (irrevocable?) changes in the research strategies of participating universities; 4. Research programmes and achievements; 5. New research collaborations.

1. Academic appointments Original proposal called for 23 new posts (3 profs, 11 lecturers, 1 SRF, 8 PDRAs) Have an outstanding cohort of young OR researchers (1 Nicholson finalist, 2 OR Society prize winners, several ‘best paper’ awardees at major conferences) Four postdocs have progressed to full academic positions (LANCS alumni) The challenge of making strong professorial appointments (Board’s support to assist in filling the Nottingham position)

2.Building UK research capability sustainably(1) Recruitment has brought new talent (i) to the UK from elsewhere, and (ii) to OR from other areas of mathematics/computer science; LANCS has enabled the UK to retain key people and so sustain critical research programmes and capabilities; All universities have committed to make the academic appointments within LANCS permanent (value of more than £7M over the 5 years of the grant);

2.Building UK research capability sustainably(2) Sustainability: business plans to support expanded research capability (includes expanded teaching provision in OR at all levels as well as expanded PhD programmes); Enriched research environment: six themed cross-institution research networks (H-Jeff Griffiths(C); HU-Andrew Parkes(N); O-Adam Letchford(L); SB-Edmund Burke(N); SM-Stein Wallace(L); TL-Richard Eglese(L) and Chris Potts(S)) ; Developing tomorrow’s research leaders in OR (focus of tomorrow’s open discussion session)

3. The impact of LANCS on the research strategies of our universities In the session before lunch today we will describe how LANCS resource has been leveraged to support the further building of OR research capability at our universities. Major new initiatives have resulted and the impact of LANCS has been thereby magnified.

4.Research Programmes and Achievements(1) Challenges from the last Advisory Board Meeting: High impact research (the Edelman challenge-EB); Strengthened cross cluster/university collaboration 1. Links between (HU, SB, SM) and (H, TL); 2. Exploration of theoretical challenges across (HU, O) and (SM); 3. Currently evaluating proposals for further collaborative projects.

4.Research Programmes and Achievements(2) Developments since the last Advisory Board Meeting: Emergence of Energy as a major theme of SM following the Industrial/Public Sector Outreach workshop (London, October 2010) (SWW); Successful application for a research workshop on Polynomial Optimisation at the Isaac Newton Institute (AL); Many new collaborations (see Section 5 of report).

LANCS: Growing the UK’s research capacity in foundational OR The Programme