The Joint ICORD EWG ORD WORKSHOP 2013 was organised at the Sapienza University of Rome during 27th and 28th of June 2013. The annual ICORD workshop of IFORS is the current format of the ICORD initiative started in 1992. The workshop provides a platform for intense, involved and implementation oriented discussion on issues related to development. In a sense it is the continuation of the theme of ICORD activities which is now being pursued through ORD WORKSHOP with lot more focus on implementation and problem solving.
The workshop format was very effective in achieving the goal. Each presenter were given adequate time for presentation. Two reactors were identified in advance. They were provided with the full paper and were expected to critically react on the paper. In addition, open discussion at the end was also facilitated. An important aspect of the workshop was the tutorial on Problem Structuring Methods by Jonathan Rosenhead and Leroy White.
The developing world was well represented at the workshop with participants from Africa, Asia, South America, New Zealand along with some participants from Europe with interest in the field. The papers presented at the conference covered areas like environment, education, energy, agriculture, food, health, development administration and the like. All the papers dealt with real life development related problems and their management. The techniques used to analyse the problems varied from hard OR tools like Data Envelopment Analysis, Analytical Hierarchy Process, Supply Chain Management and the like to soft OR tools with variants of Problem Structuring Methods. As is usual, in most cases more than one approach were used to address the issues involved. An interesting aspect of the workshop was the reactions by the reactors and the discussions that followed the presentation. This reflected the involvement and concern of the participants on these developmental issues. To sum up the proceedings of the workshop, it fulfilled its objective beyond expectation. On the whole the workshop was highly valuable and served its purpose very well.