IFORS 2026: Experiencing Operational Research on a Global Scale

By Willem Meiring

The 24th Triennial Conference of the International Federation of Operational Research Societies (IFORS), held in Vienna, Austria, from 12 to 17 July 2026, was an incredibly interesting and humbling experience. I had the privilege of attending through my research group, Stellenbosch Unit for Operations Research in Engineering (SUnORE), with the support of my supervisor, Prof Jan van Vuuren, and presenting some of my research to an international audience.

As with most things in life, there are levels, and I was struck by the scale and quality of this conference. I had previously been fortunate enough to present some of my work at the EURO Working Group on Vehicle Routing and Logistics Optimization meeting (VeRoLog) and the International Conference on Optimization and Decision Science (ODS). Both were incredible experiences in their own right, but IFORS was on another level in terms of sheer scale and international reach.

The conference was held at the beautiful and historic University of Vienna, founded in 1365, with sessions held across three nearby buildings: the Main Building, the Juridicum and Kolingasse. The scientific programme ran from Monday to Friday and brought together around 2,500 participants from the global OR community. With more than 2,000 scheduled contributions and often more than 40 sessions taking place simultaneously, there was certainly no shortage of choice.

I spent considerable time going through the programme and abstracts before the conference, trying to piece together a schedule around the inevitable clashes. Much of my time was devoted to subjects directly related to my own research, including vehicle routing, facility location, location-routing, mathematical programming and exact optimisation methods. I also made an effort to attend talks in areas in which I have less experience but which I find intriguing, including machine learning, game theory and quantum optimisation. Even with careful planning, it was impossible to see more than a small fraction of what the programme offered.

Beyond its size, I was thoroughly impressed by the quality of the presentations, as well as by the questions and discussions that followed them. Most of the parallel sessions I attended attracted sizeable and engaged audiences. The questions often challenged assumptions, highlighted interesting connections and led to discussions that frequently continued in the corridors afterwards.

One of the greatest benefits of an international conference is the opportunity to step outside one's local academic environment. Presenting research to a wider audience offers perspectives that can be difficult to obtain within familiar circles. It was fascinating to hear how researchers from different countries and institutions approached similar problems, sometimes using entirely different methods or placing greater emphasis on considerations that I had not previously encountered. Meeting people who find the same problems interesting but think about them differently invariably makes for rewarding conversations.

As a relative newcomer and someone who still has a great deal to learn in the incredibly rich field of Operational Research, I was naturally excited to listen to, meet and speak with some of the greats in the field. It is a strange experience to spend years reading and citing someone's work, then suddenly find yourself listening to them present their latest research, sitting in the same audience at other talks or, in some cases, realising that they are in the room during your own presentation.

The list is by no means exhaustive, but I had the privilege of listening to or speaking briefly with several of these researchers, and in a few cases I even gathered the courage to ask for a photograph. These included Paolo Toth, one of the most influential figures in vehicle routing and combinatorial optimisation; Silvano Martello, renowned for his foundational work on knapsack and assignment problems; Claudia Archetti, a leading researcher in vehicle routing and logistics; Thomas Magnanti, a major figure in network optimisation and mathematical programming; Fred Glover, who invented tabu search and coined the term "metaheuristic"; and Gary Kochenberger, a leading figure in binary quadratic and QUBO optimisation.

Although these researchers might reasonably be considered the "celebrities" of the OR world, that description could not be further removed from the way they carried themselves at the conference. Without exception, they were warm, approachable and remarkably unassuming. Unless one already knew the significance of their contributions, one might simply have assumed that they were conference participants like everyone else, interested in discussing research and exchanging ideas with anyone who shared their curiosity, irrespective of career stage or position.

IFORS 2026 provided a striking reminder of both the reach of Operational Research and the size of the international community devoted to it. I returned home with new ideas, new connections, and a renewed appreciation of how much there is still to learn.

The next IFORS Triennial Conference is set to take place in Calgary, Canada, in 2029.  I would strongly encourage any student or researcher who has the opportunity to submit their work and attend, to do so.

The photographs below capture a few of the people, places and moments that made IFORS 2026 such a memorable experience.

 A lively start to IFORS 2026 at the welcome reception in the University of Vienna's historic courtyard.

With Paolo Toth and his wife, together with Prof Jan van Vuuren, at the welcome reception.

Presenting some of my work on school bus location-routing problems.

With Gary Kochenberger and Fred Glover following their session on discrete and quantum-inspired optimisation.

Closing drinks on the final day with former SUnORE student Jacobus King and supervisor, Prof Jan van Vuuren.

Outside the historic Main Building of the University of Vienna during IFORS 2026.