Supporting real decisions: A review of OR practice in the UK

The history of OR in the UK is described, so as to demonstrate why the UK is unique in Europe in having a large practitioner community, and much practice-oriented support from the academic sector. By recognising that OR practice involves intervening in a social process, as well as supporting decisions with quantitative methods, practitioners have developed their social and consultancy skills to improve their effectiveness, whilst academics have developed problem structuring approaches to enable OR to be applied more widely. Current OR practice is described via statistics of OR groups and examples of typical projects. Education and training opportunities in OR, and major academic achievements are also summarised. Requirements for successful OR practice are postulated from on-going research, and suggestions to encourage the more widespread use of OR are made.