INFORMS Prizes & Awards

This prize emphasizes the quality and coherence of the analysis used in practice. Dr. Wagner strove for strong mathematics applied to practical problems, supported by clear and intelligible writing. This prize recognizes those principles by emphasizing good writing, strong analytical content, and verifiable practice successes. 

2024 Submission Deadline: May 1, 2024 (11:59 pm)

INFORMS is again sponsoring a competition to encourage student research and practice that has societal impact. The "Doing Good with Good OR Student Competition" will feature the most exciting work performed by students in partnership with public and private organizations that yields tangible and beneficial outcomes for individuals, communities, and organizations. Such work will be infused with OR/MS methods and could appeal to multiple disciplinary and application-area interests.

2024 Submission Deadline: May 15, 2024 (11:59pm pacific) 

The purpose of the award is to support creative and diverse work in operations research in the early career of the recipient. The candidate must be within ten years of receiving a PhD and be in a tenure track academic appointment.

2024 SUBMISSION DEADLINE:  July 8, 2024

The purpose of the Franz Edelman competition is to bring forward, recognize and reward outstanding examples of operations research, management science, and advanced analytics practice in the world. Winner gets a $10,000 prize. This award is administered by the Practice Section of INFORMS.

2025 SUBMISSION DEADLINE: OCTOBER 1, 2024 (noon eastern)

Nominations are invited for the 2024 Lanchester Prize. This prize is awarded for the best contribution to operations research and the management sciences published in English in the past five years (i.e. 2019 or more recent). For a group of publications, at least one publication of the group must have been published during that same five-year period.

The award will be given at the 2024 INFORMS Annual Meeting.

2024 Submission Deadline:  June 15, 2024

The George B. Dantzig Award is given for the best dissertation in any area of operations research and the management sciences that is innovative and relevant to practice. This award has been established to encourage academic research that combines theory and practice and stimulates greater interaction between doctoral students (and their advisors) and the world of practice. The award is given at the INFORMS Annual Meeting.

2024 Submission Deadline: June 30, 2024 

The George E. Kimball Medal is awarded for recognition of distinguished service to the Institute and to the profession of operations research and the management sciences. The award is a medallion and a certificate.

2024 Submission Deadline: May 15, 2024 

The George Nicholson competition is held each year to identify and honor outstanding papers in the field of operations research and the management sciences written by a student.

2024 Submission Deadline: June 2, 2024

The Impact Prize, awarded once every two years, is intended to recognize widespread impact in the practice of operations research. It may be awarded to an individual or a single set of collaborators. The award may be given for the original research (if these ideas have been widely adopted), and/or for special efforts required to bring the research to a practical form (e.g., implementation as a software package or the communication of a body of research through writings, teaching, and consulting). The important criterion is breadth of use in practice and relevance to operations research. The technical assessment of the quality of the work is considered secondary to the degree to which it has been widely adopted.

Awarded only in even years
2024 Deadline - April 30, 2024

The annual case competition is intended to encourage the creation, dissemination, and classroom use of novel teaching cases in operations research, management science and analytics. While the Case Competition Award Committee desires to promote creation of new and innovative cases, it recognizes that the dissemination of such cases cannot always wait for the timing of this award, and thus recognizes novel submissions for this award as those that have been first published within 12 months of the competition award deadline.

2024 Submission Deadline: July 31, 2024

The INFORMS Early Career Practitioner Award was created to engage and recognize early career professionals in the fields of operations research, management science, and advanced analytics for their exceptional contributions to business/industry, government, and consulting, and service to the profession.

INFORMS acknowledges the distinct needs of practitioners and has strategically prioritized addressing their professional growth throughout their careers. The award seeks to acknowledge individuals who have made significant contributions within the initial five years of their post-graduation employment, and currently working outside of academia.

2025 SUBMISSION DEADLINE: December 1, 2024

This INFORMS competition that provides real-world workplace experience for undergraduate and master’s level students.

Student teams are given the same business problem, data sets, and access to software to solve a challenging problem using an OR/analytics approach. A panel of industry and academic experts judge written submissions based on teams’ use of the full analytics process, from framing the problem to methodology selection, data use, model building and innovation.

The OR & Analytics Student Team Competition is being reviewed.
The competition will not be held for this competition year.  
Stay tuned for more information.

The purpose of this award is to recognize, and thereby encourage, important contributions to the welfare of society by members of our profession at the local, national, or global level.

The INFORMS Prize is awarded for effective integration of advanced analytics and operations research/management sciences (OR/MS) in an organization. The award is to be given to an organization that has repeatedly applied the principles of advanced analytics and OR/MS in pioneering, varied, novel, and lasting ways.

2025 Nomination Deadline: December 15, 2024

The John von Neumann Theory prize is awarded annually to a scholar (or scholars in the case of joint work) who has made fundamental, sustained contributions to theory in operations research and the management sciences.

2024 Nomination Deadline: June 1, 2024

The Judith Liebman Award has been established to recognize outstanding student volunteers who have been "moving spirits" in their universities, their student chapters, and the Institute. 

2024 NOMINATION DEADLINE: August 1, 2024

The Moving Spirit Award has been established to recognize outstanding geographic chapter volunteers or student chapter faculty advisors who have been "moving spirits" in their chapters.

2024 Nominations Deadline: August 1, 2024

The Moving Spirit Award has been established to recognize outstanding forum volunteers who have been "moving spirits" in their forum.

2024 Nomination Deadline: August 1, 2024

The purpose of this award is to recognize and honor a lecturer of operations research and management science who exemplifies the true spirit of Professor Morse and who, like Professor Morse, has been an outstanding spokesperson for the operations research profession. The awardee should have substantial scholarly and creative output and an established record of success in solving applied problems arising from fields of operations research, taken broadly.

2023 Nomination Deadline:  April 30, 2023 (Extended from March 30)

The Prize for the Teaching of OR/MS Practice will be given annually, if there is a suitable recipient, to a university or college teacher for excellence in teaching the practice of OR/MS. The purpose of this award is to recognize a teacher who has succeeded in helping his or her students to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to be effective practitioners of operations research or the management sciences. An "effective practitioner" has respect for, understanding of, and the skills to surmount both the practical difficulties and the technical challenges of doing good OR/MS work.

2024 Submission Deadline:  June 30, 2024