50th Anniversary Perspective and Editorial Statement

50th Anniversary Perspective

As Mathematics of Operations Research marks its 50th anniversary, this editorial statement reaffirms the journal’s mission while recognizing the continued evolution of the field. Over five decades, MOR has expanded its scope by engaging deeply with neighboring areas such as complexity theory, algorithms, stochastic modeling, and learning, while maintaining a consistent emphasis on mathematical depth, originality, and enduring significance.

The present revision reflects this tradition, acknowledging the accelerating pace of methodological and technological change while underscoring MOR’s role in advancing the mathematical foundations that support decision making, operations research, and management science. In doing so, the journal remains firmly rooted in its history while continuing to engage with emerging directions shaping the future of the field.

Editorial Statement

Mathematics of Operations Research is a premier methodological journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). The journal invites articles on the mathematical and computational foundations of operations research and management science, including continuous, discrete, and stochastic optimization; stochastic processes and models; game theory; learning, computation, and adaptive decision making; and related methodological areas relevant to OR/MS.

The journal also welcomes contributions at the interface with neighboring methodological areas and in emerging directions in decision making and computation, including probability, statistics, artificial intelligence, learning, automated reasoning, and quantum computation, provided that these works advance foundational understanding relevant to operations research and management science.

As the field has evolved, the boundaries among methodological areas have become increasingly permeable. Mathematics of Operations Research welcomes contributions that span multiple areas. When a paper engages several areas, authors should choose the one that best matches the paper’s central methodological contribution and the community for which its insights are most relevant. Manuscripts may be reassigned by the editors if another area provides a more natural fit.

The emphasis is on originality, quality, and importance; mathematical correctness alone is not sufficient. While the journal emphasizes mathematical methodology, authors are expected to clearly position their contributions in the context of mainstream operations research and decision-making problems, and to provide motivation that makes this relevance transparent. Significant developments in operations research and management science that do not have substantial mathematical depth are more appropriately directed to other journals in the INFORMS family.