A summer school about OR in Agriculture and Forest Management will be held in Lleida, Spain, July 25th - August 8th 2009

Aims and Scope

Spanning the bridge between optimization theory and primary sector applications (mainly Agriculture and Forestry, but also Fisheries and Natural Resources in general) is one of the big challenges for the operations research community. Stochastic optimization and modern software implementations have become an indispensable resource in engineering sciences and economics. This high demand in interdisciplinary collaboration is, however, not adequately covered in most of the current curricula programs in applied mathematics or (agronomic/forest) engineering.

Aim of this EURO Summer Institute is to bring together young scientists with academic experts on OR methods besides the development of applications for Agriculture, Forestry and related industries of the primary sector.

This ESI will combine tutorial lectures on stochastic programming, games theory, decision graphs, simulation, production planning and software presentations with student contributions and scientific discussions around agriculture and forest management applications. It offers a unique opportunity for young scientists to acquaint themselves with state of the art OR methods and applications in Agriculture and Forestry, to enter the scientific community, and to share their experience with young colleagues from all over Europe.

Invited Speakers

Laureano Escudero (Spain) - Thomas D. Nielsen (Denmark) - Jack P. Kleijnen (Netherlands) - Anders R. Kristensen (Denmark) - Carlos Romero (Spain) - Stef Tijs (Netherlands) - Dave Martell (Canada) - Timo Pukkala (Finland) - Andrés Weintraub (Chile) - Stefan Nickel (Germany).

Conference Venue

The conference will be held in two consecutive places, at the University of Lleida and at the Technical Forestry Center of Catalonia, both within the province of Lleida (Catalonia, Spain).

Located in the north-eastern part of Spain, Lleida is a leading area in Agriculture and Forestry produce and industries related. Furthermore, the beauty of Pyrenees and impressive landscapes provides a relaxed ambiance ideal for this meeting.

Committee

The ESI organising committee consists of Ljuk O. Ericsson (Sweden), Laureano Escudero (Spain), Frederik Garcia (France), Anders R. Kristensen (Denmark), Lluis M. Plà (Spain, Chair of local committee), Carlos Romero (Spain), Andrés Weintraub (Chile).

Participation

Participation is limited to a group of about 20 students, normally aged 25-35, who have significant experience in the field, and are authors of at least one high-quality paper which has not yet been published, nor submitted for publication. During ESI all participants are invited to give a talk of 30 minutes on their submitted paper.

Each national OR Society is entitled to send at least one participant (possibly up to three) to the ESI. The costs of the ESI are met by EURO and other organisations, excluding the participants’ travel expenses which are normally met by the corresponding national OR Societies.

Students interested in participating in ESI 2009 should send their application, together with their curriculum vitae, their list of publications and an unpublished paper corresponding to this year’s theme, to their national OR Society.

Deadline

The deadline for application at the national OR Societies is 15th February, 2009.

Publication

A special issue of an ISI journal will be produced dedicated to the papers presented at the ESI. Therefore the submitted papers should be suitable for publication and meet selected journal’s standards as described in corresponding “notes for Authors”.

Further Information

For further information and subsequent updates see also www.esi2009.udl.cat. Alternatively, sending a request by e-mail to esi2009 [Email address: esi2009 #AT# matematica.udl.cat - replace #AT# with @ ].

Link to pdf version