Executive Director’s Log: Notes from Day 24 of 2026

At breakfast this morning, I was thinking about what to write for my first OR/MS Today column of 2026, and I felt an unexpected mix of joy and pride bubble up. That doesn’t always happen when you’re staring at a blank screen eating a bowl of cereal, so I paused and asked myself where it was coming from.

Three things came to mind immediately. None of them are flashy on their own, but together they tell a story that feels worth sharing. A story that should make you as members proud.

First, our journals are reaching the world in a way they never have before. Late last year, INFORMS completed the transition of its institutional distribution to EBSCO Business Source, significantly expanding access to our journal content through libraries and institutions worldwide. INFORMS continues to serve members directly; EBSCO now handles all online institutional access. At the time, we believed this shift would increase the reach and impact of our community’s work. What we didn’t yet have was evidence.

Now we do.

When I reviewed download data from November 2025, I saw that approximately 80% of article downloads came from readers at institutions that were not previously subscribers to INFORMS content. I double-checked the numbers with colleagues to be sure I was interpreting them correctly.

When INFORMS hosted and sold its own content, our journals were available to about 2,500 subscribing institutions. Through EBSCO, they are now accessible to more than 30,000 institutions worldwide, in over 150 countries. In 2025, total downloads of INFORMS journal content neared 8 million, about a 30% increase over 2024, which was also a record year.

Downloads are not a perfect measure of impact, but they are a meaningful signal of discoverability and access. More people are finding our work – and using it. This is exactly what we mean by our strategic goal to “advance the science and technology of decision-making and elevate its impact.” This community does extraordinary work and getting that work into the hands of people who can learn from and build on it is part of our responsibility as a professional association.

Second, the Franz Edelman Award finalists were announced. As always, the list is impressive. Organizations are applying analytics, operations research, artificial intelligence and management science to challenges ranging from supply chains and sustainability to public food distribution systems. The work is rigorous, creative and consequential.

This year’s six finalists include Chewy; the Department of Food and Public Distribution, Government of India; ECCO; Google; Microsoft; and NVIDIA. As with every year, the range of organizations and problem domains is striking. Each was selected through the same rigorous review process, and each represents outstanding applied work.

What caught my attention this year is that three of the finalists – Google, Microsoft and NVIDIA – are among the largest and most influential technology companies in the world. These organizations are shaping global markets, computing infrastructure and the future of artificial intelligence. And they chose to submit their work to the Edelman Competition.

Essentially, they are asking volunteer experts from the INFORMS community to evaluate their applications alongside those from other finalists. They are choosing to be assessed through a process grounded in rigor, evidence and documented impact. That matters. It speaks to the standards this community has set, and the role INFORMS continues to play in defining what excellence looks like in applied analytics.

Finally, there is a quieter development that is just as significant. Through the U.S. FY2026 appropriations process, funding for the National Science Foundation (NSF) was preserved despite a budget proposal that would have cut it by more than 50%. Those proposed cuts would have been devastating for basic research and the broader ecosystem that supports scientific discovery.

Congress ultimately rejected those cuts. NSF funding was stabilized to near current levels, well above what had been proposed.

This didn’t happen easily or automatically. It reflected sustained advocacy across the research community, including professional associations, coalitions, institutions and individual researchers who made the case for why public investment in science matters. INFORMS played a role in that effort through advocacy tools for members, letters to agency leaders, partnerships with peer societies and participation in Capitol Hill visits. Many of you added your voices directly. Thank you.

For many of our academic members, NSF funding makes it possible to do the work they were trained to do – work that leads to new methods, new insights and real-world impact. Preserving that support helps ensure the next generation of research and researchers can move forward.

So here I am, on day 24 of 2026, feeling genuinely encouraged heading into the rest of this year.

Our knowledge is reaching more people than ever before. Some of the most influential organizations in the world are seeking evaluation through our community’s stamp of approval. And collective advocacy helped protect the scientific infrastructure that so many of our members – and frankly, the world – rely on.

None of this happened by accident. It reflects strategic choices, volunteer and staff leadership, member engagement and a shared commitment to smarter decision-making for a better world.

That feels like a great way to start the year.