Our Story

Madeira, May 1989

The EURO Working Group on Decision Support System EWG-DSS was founded during a memorable EURO Summer Institute on DSS that took place at Madeira, Portugal, in May 1989. This Summer Institute was organised by Prof. Jean-Pierre Brans and Prof. José Paixão, among others. It counted with the participation of 24 young researchers of 16 different nationalities, shown in the group picture below.

EURO Summer Institute on DSS, Madeira, Portugal, 1989: The birth of the EWG-DSS

Most of the participants of the EURO Summer Institute on DSS in Madeira in 1989 still continue nowadays to pursue their goals, working actively in their research areas related to OR and Decision Support Systems.

The EWG-DSS was born with 24 founding-members. Since then, the number of members has substantially grown along the years. Now we are over 300 registered members coming from various nationalities. There has also been established quiet a few well-qualified research co-operations within the group members, which have generated valuable contributions to the DSS field in journal publications. Check about the research collaboration within the EWG-DSS via some results of the Collab-Net Project.

Since its creation, the EWG-DSS has held annual Meetings in various European countries, has taken active part in the EURO Conferences on decision-making related subjects; and has organized several workshops and conferences on different topics around Decision Support Systems. Check the list of EWG-DSS activities in Conferences.

In 2019, the EWG-DSS celebrates its 30th Anniversary and organizes its annual ICDSST Conference back in Madeira, Portugal. Further details about the EWG-DSS 30-Years Celebration can be found in the ICDSST 2019 Homepage

Growing Up

From 24 people the group has grown to more than 300 registered members from many countries, with a further active community on LinkedIn.

Just as important as the numbers are the collaborations. Over three decades the group has produced a steady stream of joint research — co-authored papers, guest-edited journal issues, and shared projects between institutions that first met through the working group.

A Rhythm of Meetings

Since its creation the EWG-DSS has:

held annual meetings across Europe — Fontainebleau, Bruges, Nagycenk, Sintra, Turku, Samos, Ispra, Granada, Toulouse, Cascais, Istanbul, Luxembourg, Prato, Graz, and more;
taken an active part in the EURO Conferences, organising dedicated DSS streams;
run its own workshops and conferences — London and Paris (2011), Liverpool (2012), Thessaloniki (2013), and from 2015 the annual ICDSST series.

Timeline

1989 – Founded at the EURO Summer Institute, Madeira — 24 members
2002 – First annual newsletter
2007 – Management moves from a single coordinator to a Coordination Board
2011 – First EWG-DSS Young Researcher Award; London and Paris workshops
2012 – First Springer LNBIP volume in the “Decision Support Systems” series
2015 – ICDSST becomes the group’s annual flagship conference (Belgrade, Serbia)
2015 – Management structure extended with an Advisory Board
2019 – 30th anniversary — ICDSST returns to Madeira
2024 – ICDSST held jointly with the GDN conference in Porto (Portugal)
2026 – 12th ICDSST, Plymouth (UK)
2027 – 13th ICDSST, Chania (Greece) – join us