Women in OR & Analytics Network (WORAN)

The Women in OR & Analytics Network is a network for female OR practitioners and academics.

The gender imbalance in OR and STEM in general still presents many challenges both for academics and practitioners.

Whilst there is a lot of literature about the low proportions of women in STEM careers, no work had specifically been undertaken on the UK OR profession until 2018 when The OR Society sponsored three MSc research projects on the theme of women in OR.

Key findings from the three projects concluded that The OR Society should establish a network for women at work in OR and analytics to build strong, encouraging connections.

We need you

We need your voice, your knowledge and your experience in this group. Help us to build a strong, self-supporting network and to set better conditions for the next cohort of young women launching into their careers in OR and analytics.

Future Events

Land Lecture - with Dervilla Mitchell CBE, FREng, FIEI

8 October 2024, Ada Lovelace Day, at 16.00 - 18.00 online

register here

Join us for the online Land Lecture event on Ada Lovelace Day. We're honoured to welcome Dervilla Mitchell CBE, FREng, FIEI, our Land Lecturer.

Dervilla brings a wealth of experience, having recently stepped down as joint deputy chair of the Arup Engineering Group,, a giant engineering company that has - in no small part thanks to Dervilla - an exceptionally high proportion of female engineers amongst its staff. Dervilla was Head of Design Management for Heathrow Terminal 5, and also worked on the London 2012 Olympic Village, the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, and a number of other prestigious engineering projects.

For some years she was a member of the Prime Minister's Council for Science and Technology, where she championed the use of computational modelling across the economy; and she is currently Chair of the Royal Academy of Engineering's decarbonisation working group. She has long been recognised as an exceptional role model in engineering.

Previous Event

Gender Equality: Opportunities and Challenges for the OR Community

Date: 12 June 2024, 12:00 – 14:00 (via Zoom)

Guest Speakers: Paula Carroll and Annunziata Esposito Amideo

Following the discussion paper titled ‘Gender Equality: Opportunities and Challenges for the OR Community’ being published in JORS, the authors of the paper held an interactive webinar to further discuss the paper and allowed participants to ask questions.

The discussion paper identifies a gap in understanding gender equality issues in the discipline of OR and the role of gender in participation and career progression in the field. To address this gap, a gender lens was applied to OR literature, examining its history, community, theory, methods and practice to uncover hidden gender dimensions and bring gender issues into focus. The analysis revealed that women are largely invisible from recorded OR history. Through a survey of the current OR community, insights into career paths by gender were gained. Using a decision tree approach, it was found that women perceive barriers to participation and career progression, which are less apparent to their male peers.

This study offers new insights by reflecting on OR history through a gender lens, discussing the impact of gender on OR careers, and critically examining the findings. The aim of the paper is to stimulate conversation and encourage further exploration of innovative and cross-disciplinary research at the intersection of gender and OR.

Read Paper

Network Committee

Events Subcommittee

PR & Media Subcommittee

Mentoring Subcommittee