The Spanish Statistics and Operations Research Society

Founded in 1962


The Spanish Statistics and Operations Research Society was founded on 12 February 1962. The Society was founded as an Operations Research Society. The first meeting of the 'Operations Research Society' took place in the rooms of the Institute of Statistical Research of the Upper Council of Scientific Research and was attended by 52 people interested in methods of Operations Research and the propagation within Spain of the theory and practice in the field.

A General Meeting of the Operations Research Society was held on the 30 June 1976 when it was decided that, to broaden its appeal, the Society had to include the topics of Statistics and Computer Science. This new Society, which continued under the name Spanish Operations Research Society, had at this time 350 members, most but not all of whom were academics. At the General Meeting held on the 20 December 1984 it was decided to modify its statutes, its name and the statements of its aims, and from that time on it has been known as the 'Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research' (Sociedad de Estadistica e Investigación Operativa).

The aims of the Society are the development, improvement and promotion of the methods and applications of Statistics and Operations Research in the widest sense possible. To accomplish this aim, the Society organizes conferences and scientific meetings, publishes professional journals and news bulletins, facilitates national and international exchanges, promotes public and private sector consultation activities, stimulates research and, in general, makes Statistics and Operations Research available to the service of the wider society. Conferences are organised every 18 months. The Society has two sections: (i) The Statistics Section and (ii) The Operations Research Section. Each section is run by its Academic Council, made up of two members and presided over by the Vice-president who represents the Section in the Executive Council of the Society. All members of the Society belong to at least one of its two sections.

Today the Society produces the Bulletin of Statistics and Operations Research (BEIO) and the two journals TEST and TOP. Let us say a little about each of these publications.

The Bulletin of Statistics and Operations Research (Boletín de la Sociedad de Estadística e Investigación Operativa) is a quarterly journal that includes the sections: Statistics, Operations Research, Official Statistics, History and Teaching, and Opinions about the Profession. The Bulletin appeared for the first time in 1985 as the "Informative Bulletin of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research" which was basically a newsletter for the Society edited by Bernardo José Miguel Herranz. It has evolved continually since that time. The first scientific article was published in Bulletin of Statistics and Operations Research in 1994, when Francisco Javier Quintana Martin was its editor, and the number of scientific articles published in it increased until, in 2008, the purely newsletter type sections of the Bulletin were dropped as it became a research journal for the publication of Statistics and Operations Research.

TEST is an international journal of Statistics and Probability edited by the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research and distributed by Springer Verlag. Each year a volume of the journal is published in four parts. As well as research papers, each of the four parts contains an invited article with discussion. TEST began as the journal "Trabajos de Estadística", founded originally by Professor Sixto Ríos and known under the names of "Trabajos de Estadística" (1950-1962), "Trabajos de Estadística e Investigación Operativa" (1963-1985), and "Trabajos de Estadística" (1986-1991).

TOP is an international journal of Operations Research edited by the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research and distributed by Springer Verlag. Each year a volume of the journal is published in three parts. As well as research papers, each of the three parts contains an invited article with discussion. TOP, which began publication in 1993 under the editorship of Jaume Barceló and Laureano Escudero, arose out of the transformation of the journal "Trabajos de Investigación Operativa", founded originally by Professor Sixto Ríos and published between 1950 and 1992.

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References (show)

  1. R E Machol, Operations Research in Spain, Interfaces 12 (1) (1982), 34-37.
  2. Sociedad de Estadistica e Investigación Operativa. http://www.seio.es/2.html

Last Updated February 2018