Becoming Visible: Why We Should be Better Communicators Now

Abstract

Several Operations Research (OR) applications have been presented at the 4 th AIROYoung Workshop in Bozen (February 5-7, 2020). We start this essay by reporting the main research topics studied and discussed nowadays by young OR researchers. Once again, these have shown the potential and the effect of exploiting applied mathematics, in particular OR, to solve problems arising from reality. Indeed, speaking about the present, OR has been already contributing to fight the COVID-19 pandemic from its beginning, integrated with other techniques to forecast and simulate future scenarios. For instance, OR can help decide how to optimally allocate resources and how to manage the supply chain of food, medical and essential items. We illustrate a few examples of the efforts done to tackle several aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Given its strong impact and wide applicability, we wonder about the visibility problem of OR: why is it still unknown to people and has not become a buzzword such as the terms "machine learning" or "artificial intelligence"? And, still, what does it mean to "become visible"? We compare some search terms with Google Trends and report several opinions on this topic. The main purpose of this essay is to refuel the discussion on OR communication to laypeople, by highlighting issues while considering different contexts. Starting from our young community itself, we would like to encourage researchers to take action to make OR more visible.