Istanbul 2019

Istanbul, 2019

Minutes of the Business Meeting

June 20, 2019, Istanbul 

Murat Köksalan chaired the meeting. (The number of members of the Society attending the meeting was about 50).

Domain and Membership

Murat Köksalan, the President of the Society, informed the participants about the domain of the society. He mentioned that the Society’s website as well as the database are hosted by Gandi, a cloud-based hosting company. He presented website statistics, number of sessions by country for period between January, 2019 and May, 2019 that are obtained through Google Analytics. 

Murat Köksalan mentioned that there are currently 2708 members from 96 countries as of May 2019. The members of the Society were  asked to keep their e-mail addresses up-to-date and contact the secretary for changes at secretary@mcdmsociety.org. He informed that the Society has no membership fees and invited nonmember participants to become members of the Society at http://www.mcdmsociety.org/content/newmembers?q=user/register

Electronic Discussion List and LinkedIn Group 

Murat Köksalan informed the participants that Society’s electronic discussion list is on MailmanLists.  He mentioned that the discussion list is independent from the membership and requires a separate application to join. 

Murat Köksalan told that there are presently 344 members of LinkedIn Group of the Society that is only open to the members of the Society. He invited the members to join the group at https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8471476 for sharing information including calls for conferences, book chapters, and special issues of journals, various announcements, and recent works. 

The on-going Conference and MCDM 2019 Special Issues

Murat Köksalan informed about the on-going conference and reported the number of participants by country.  He reported that CDF (www.creativedecisions.net), established by Thomas L. Saaty and Rozann W. Saaty in 1996, covered the registration fees of 22 scholars presenting AHP/ANP - related papers and the Society has partially supported 26 participants.

Murat Köksalan informed about the special issues to be published after the conference in journals/volumes listed below:

  • Springer‘s Book Series: Contributions to Management Science.
  • Journal of Enterprise Information Management 
  • International Journal of the Analytic Hierarchy Process Special Issue
  • Journal of Global Optimization
  • Journal of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis
  • Annals of Operations Research
  • Optimization and Engineering 

He encouraged the participants to submit their papers that were presented at MCDM2019 but also noted that the special issues are not limited to talks given at MCDM2019. 

Added note: There will also be a special issue in Advances in Operations Research

The next MCDM conference

Murat Köksalan informed that the 27th International Conference on MCDM will be held in Portsmouth, UK (tentatively) between July 26 and July 30, 2019 (with a welcome reception on 25th). He mentioned that the General Chair will be Alessio Ishizaka and the co-chair will be Banu Lokman.

Some of the members suggested to change the dates since it coincides with the holiday periods in many countries. It is also suggested to check the other conferences not only in operations research but also in decision analysis. 

 

Supplementary notes: In reaction to doubts of members concerning the rather late tentative dates of the conference, the organizers proposed new dates in the meantime: June 27 to July 2

 

Officers of the Society

Murat Köksalan introduced the officers of the Society He informed the participants that his term as the President of the Society ends with this conference and Matthias Ehrgott will be the new president after the MCDM2019 Conference. He also mentioned that Birsen Karpak’s term as the Vice-President of Finance, Banu Lokman’s term as the Secretary, and Johannes Siebert’s term as the Newsletter editor will also be ending. He announced that the EC reappointed Johannes Siebert as the Newsletter editor and appointed Kerstin Daechert as the new Secretary for four year terms. In addition, Murat Köksalan mentioned that a new President-Elect, a new Vice-President of Finance, and four new members need to be elected after the MCDM2019 Conference. He announced the candidates (in alphabetical order):

For president elect: 

  • Jose Rui Figueira, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
  • Kathrin Klamroth, University of Wuppertal, Germany

For vice president of finance: 

  • Birsen Karpak, Youngstown State University, USA

For EC: 

  • Carlos Coello Coello, National Polytechnic Institute of Mexico, USA
  • Kalyanmoy Deb, Michigan State University, 
  • Michalis Doumpos, Technical University of Crete, Greece 
  • Alessio Ishizaka, University of Portsmouth, UK
  • Milosz Kadzinski, Poznan University of Technology, Poland
  • Hatem Masri, University of Bahrain, Kingdom of Bahrain
  • Salvatore Corrente, University of Catania, Italy
  • Caroline Mota Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE)
  • Francisco Ruiz, University of Malaga, Spain

Murat Köksalan informed that all those who become members by June 30, 2019 can vote. The voting will be conducted electronicly and will be approval voting. The voting period will (tentatively) start on September 8, 2019 and end on September 22, 2019. The dates (once finalized) and other details will be provided with voting invitation by email. Murat Köksalan asked the members to make sure their membership e-mail addresses are correct.

Supplementary notes: Since Alessio Ishizaka, one of the candidates for EC, will become a member anyway in his role as Next-Meeting-Ex-Officio, he has withdrawn from the list of candidates. 

Awards

Murat Köksalan informed that MCDM Society Awards will be given at the banquet and award talks will be given on Friday morning. He mentioned that MCDM Doctoral Dissertation Award winner will also be announced at the banquet. He also informed that there were unfortunately no submissions for Wiley Practice Prize. 

MCDA/MCDM Summer School

Murat Köksalan informed that the 14th MCDA/M Summer School 2020 will be organized in Ankara, Turkey from July 6th to July 17th , 2020 and developments could be followed at the webpage: http://mcdm.metu.edu.tr/. He introduced the organizing committee: Gulsah Karakaya (Organizing Chair) and Banu Lokman (with the help of Murat Köksalan). Murat Köksalan noted that the participation fee will be tried to be kept low and includes attendance to the summer school, documents, lunches, dinners and a social activity. He told that summer schools are great opportunities inviting all members to publicize the event. He suggested that advisors encourage and fund their students.

Electronic Newsletter of the Society

Murat Köksalan mentioned that Johannes Siebert (Editor), Lucie Galand, Jana Krejčí, Salvatore Corrente, Sandra Huber prepare and publish the newsletter. The Electronic Newsletter of the International Society on MCDM is published twice a year, and is made available to all members of the Society. Murat Köksalan informed about the submission deadlines for February and September issues. He mentioned that contributions are appreciated and can be sent to the editor any time at newsletter@mcdmsociety.org. All members are encouraged to send call for papers early enough to allow for preparations and send any content suggestions or support proposals to the editor.  

Journal of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis

Theodor Stewart, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis, reported that 145 manuscripts were received and 14 of those were published in 2017 while 20 papers were published out of 145 submissions in 2018. He reported that volume 26 No 3/4 is due out imminently.  It will contain 7 papers on MCDA practice which arose from a special issue edited by Johannes Siebert and Jana Siebert (Krejčí), based on the last International Conference on MCDM.  Two other special issues are nearing finality, on topics of: AHP/ANP Studies in Technology, Entrepreneurship and Corporate Social Responsibility (Ed.: Luis Vargas) and MCDM models for Economic Development (Ed.: Hatem Masri).  Submissions during January to May 2019 have however been below the average of the past few years. 

He reported that the journal has a Scopus Cite Score of 1.32, which is in the upper half of the Strategy and Management Category (1.33 and rank of 118/347 in 2017). The journal is listed in the core Clarivate Analytics Web of Science index list, but still in Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), thus it is referenced but as yet not with an Impact Factor. Although in the ESCI, a citation index is not reported, the citations themselves are for example included in calculations such as the author’s h-index

All initiatives on special issues are encouraged. 

Closing

Murat Köksalan opened the floor for discussions and suggestions.  There was a suggestion to publish the photos of EC members at the conference web site.  This suggestion will be implemented soon.  There were discussions on whether to require more detailed abstracts (or even full papers) to be submitted and reviewed for the conferences (as in computer science conferences).  There were arguments for and against and this issue might be further discussed in the EC and among members.

Murat Köksalan closed the meeting thanking all who have participated.