Charter of the EURO Working Groups

The following charter, adopted by the EURO Council, organizes the functioning of EWGs

Creation of groups

The creation of new EWG's should be left to individual initiative, as has previously been the case. Nonetheless, it might by useful to distinguish between cases:

1. creation during a EURO K Conference
2. creation between EURO K and EURO K-1
3. creation arising from a EURO SUMMER INSTITUTE

In case (i), a convener can for instance begin by using the notice board to propose to interested persons to meet at specified time and place in an informal way. If he gets enough people together and if they agree upon a tentative schedule of activity, they produce a short report which is forwarded to the EURO Executive Committee; the latter can then either deliver the EURO label at once or await a further meeting of the group.

In case (ii), the convener either applies first to the Executive Committee, who will decide whether and under what conditions they will help, or he tries under his own initiative to get together enough people interested to work in this area, and then applies to the Executive Committee.

In case (iii) the participants at a ESI present the proposal to the Executive Committee.

In all cases the EURO label means that EURO considers itself well enough informed about the group to include it in its list of official activities. The foundation of the group should be announced in the EURO Bulletin.

Activities

EURO does not try to impose unified regulations for Working Groups. Nonetheless, a few general principles are strongly recommended.

1. The EWG's should as far as possible bring together people with different backgrounds: industry, university, etc...
2. They should be actually international in composition; this requirement is met satisfactorily if at least 4, but possibly 5 or 6 nations are represented at each meeting, and if the meetings do not take place too often in the same country.
3. Groups should be open to individual members of any EURO member society. Persons who are not members of a national OR society are not excluded from the meetings; however, a friendly pressure should be exerted upon them to become members.
4. If one of the EWG's plans a joint meeting with some other (e.g. professional) body, it should provide EURO with general information about the latter. In some cases EWGs can become the European representatives to scientific associations based in other parts of the world. This must be approved by the Executive Committee.
5. As a general rule, EURO K Conferences will provide time and space for meetings of the EWG's if they so wish and at least for these particular meetings, no entrance fee should be requested from participants.
6. Routine internal information about the groups, such as announcements of future meetings and short reports on previous meetings should be conveyed to the Vice- President in charge of Working Group and published in the EURO Bulletin. Each chairman must send the information directly to the Editor of the EURO Bulletin.
7. The Vice-President in charge of Working Groups should automatically become a member of all Working Groups during his period of office. This will make it easier for him to keep in touch with the Working Groups.
8. The Vice-President in charge of Working Groups will keep an updated list of names and co-ordinators of the Working Groups and will produce a yearly report of their activities.
9. The EWGs will use stationary displaying the EURO symbol and mention their affiliation in all their activities.
10. The EURO Council may accept the existence of Special Interest Groups with closed membership wherever this appears to be justified.

Dissolution of groups

There are two possible cases for the dissolution of a EURO WORKING GROUP:

• The chairman of the group feels that, for some reason, the group can not go on with its activity and he so informs EURO.
• The Executive Committee ascertains that the group has in fact stopped its activities or has taken a direction that is inconsistent with the goals of EURO.

In both cases, the Executive Committee can either try to restore a better situation or remove the group from the list of EWG's.

Financial arrangements

1. EURO may cover the following expenses related to
   1. Administration
      • Printing costs of common stationery (the EURO support is proportional to the number of members of the EWG and to the number of annual news letters distributed).
      • Printing of a special issue of the EURO Bulletin containing the yearly reports of the activities of EWGs to be distributed during the EURO K Conferences and directly to OR Societies.
      • Cost of a yearly meeting of EWGs co-ordinators, over lunch, during the EURO K Conferences, travelling expenses excluded.
      • Administrative costs related with the establishment of new EWGs (first two years of activity) where alternative financing cannot be found.
      • Common costs related to the new establishment and the management of a specific WWW for a EURO Working Group.
   2. Scientific activities
      EURO provides financial support to the EWGs upon a "reserve budget" for following expenses:
      • Travel and accommodation costs of invited guest speakers (non members of the EWG).
      • Travel and accommodation costs of EWG members from weak currency countries such as actually the Eastern European countries.
      • Costs of initiating and/or publishing results of EWG activities.
      • Costs for invited survey contributions on specific EWG related topics to be submitted for publication in EURO journals.
      • Travel and accommodation costs for early stage OR researchers (actual Ph.D. students and post-doctoral researchers for a period not exceeding two years after their Ph.D. defense.
   Each financial support has to be approved by the EURO Officer responsible for EWGs and is paid out by the EURO treasurer on the basis of corresponding effective cost statements with original receipts joined. 
2. EURO encourages and supports activities that can further the scientific objectives of the EWGs, promote their activities and raise funds. Namely:
   1. Mini EURO Conferences
      The EWGs are encouraged to organise such conferences within the general rules established by EURO.
   2. Other meetings
      Experience shows that some of the groups take advantage of the EURO K Conferences to organise their own meetings, either as side meetings or within the framework of the conferences itself. This is a good policy, but it should not prelude organising meetings between the conferences. Although EWG's may in some cases request a small financial contribution from the members who participate in their meetings, they are usually not supposed to handle significant amounts of money. In the case of their wishing to organise some specific colloquium, seminar, etc., which involves more finance, they can apply to the treasurer of EURO with a specific budget; in such cases efforts should be made on both sides to reach an agreement regarding possible profits or losses.
   3. Special issues of EJOR
      The EWGs are encouraged to produce special issues of EJOR after consultation with and approval by EJOR editors. Fifty per cent of the royalties accruing from those issues would be made available to support scientific activities of the EWG. The money would be held by EURO and paid out by the treasurer to cover specific expenses after approval by the Vice-President responsible for EWGs.