EthOR Award 2015 - Entry Requirements

The award will be attributed at the EURO-2015 conference to a Master’s Thesis officially approved during the last three years before the deadline (after 31st March 2012) and best complying with this purpose.

Applications for the award will be introduced by the academic supervisor(s) of the MT. The extended abstract and the accompanying letter must be written in English. They should clearly explicit the ethical aspects present in the submitted work:
- either as a direct theoretical contribution to Ethics in OR,
- or as an important part of some practical problem solved with OR techniques: it should be evidenced how Ethics is taken into account in the decision-making process, in the valuation of alternatives, in the interactions between analysts, decision-makers and stakeholders, etc.

Both the student and the supervisor(s) of the MT may be member(s) of the EWG, or desiring to join.

Selection Process
The EWG Board will designate an EthOR Award committee of four members that should not stay in any relationship with any of the applicants. The selection process will proceed in the following steps:

Firstly, the submissions will be analysed by the committee in order to select a shortlist of maximum three finalists. In case no finalist can be found the award will not be attributed.

The following non-exhaustive aspects will be scrutinised:
1. Novelty and original contributions of the author(s).
2. Pertinence and applicability for solving contemporary issues with ethical dimensions.
3. Explicit references to the contributions to Ethics and OR as stressed in the accompanying letter and the extended abstract
4. Quality and clarity of the presented documents.

If necessary, for preparing the shortlist, the committee may require from some applicants to provide the full MT in electronic form.

Secondly, the selected finalists will be informed before April 12th and requested to submit a short abstract for the Award Session of the stream on “Ethics and OR”, that will be held during the EURO-2015 conference.

Finally, in this session, the finalists will have 20 minutes to present their work, explaining details and questions by the members of the award committee. They will make the final deliberation in private after the presentations to designate the winning MT, although the award may not be attributed if the quality of the presentations is not considered sufficient. The nominee will be announced by the president of the award committee on the last session of the stream on “Ethics and OR”. The certificate will then be handed over to the finalists.