Volunteering Opportunities


We are always looking for passionate individuals to work with The OR Society. It's a fantastic way to show your commitment to the profession and your professional development.

We employ a small staff to provide functions like administrative support and marketing, but everything else is dealt with by volunteers. The different areas are outlined below.

Role: Closing date: Apply to:
     

Board, General Council & Committees

The Society’s strategic direction is decided and put into practice by the group of volunteers that make up its board, general council and committees. The committees generally meet three times a year, with other business conducted electronically, and members will take on and execute the various necessary actions from the committee business.  Each year, new committee members are nominated to fill the advertised vacancies, and sit for a term of three years.  The vacancies are advertised in August & September each year.

Regional Societies

Our regional societies exist to run local events and meetings of interest to its members in the particular region. Each region has a small committee, including a treasurer, secretary and chair, responsible for devising and running the programme of meetings. You could be involved by being part of the committee, giving a talk, or simply by attending one or more of the meetings.

Special Interest Groups

The special interest groups, or SIGs, run in a very similar way to the regional societies – except their focus is on a particular sector (such as defence or analytics) or technique area (such as forecasting).  Again, you could help run a SIG, give a talk or simply attend.  And if there doesn’t appear to be a SIG that matches your particular interest, then form one!

Conferences and Other Events

The society runs an annual conference every year (obviously!), a New to OR conference every two years, a Simulation Workshop every two years and many other events such as the careers open day.  All of these events have volunteer committees to run them, teams of stream organisers to help attract the ‘content’ and to help out during the events themselves.  Volunteers with ideas for new events or one-day meetings are also encouraged to come forward with their ideas and plans.

Inside OR News Magazine

Whilst the society does employ a part-time journalist to provide material for Inside OR, the magazine’s editor is a volunteer and we encourage as many people as possible to submit articles.  Perhaps you could co-ordinate a series of articles (such as 'OR in my Organisation') or simply tell the readership about your work or an event you’ve attended.

Journals

Here, volunteers make up the editorial teams running the society’s journals, and are backed up by a large pool of reviewers who assess the papers that are submitted for publication.  Editorial vacancies are advertised in Inside OR.

Support these special projects with your time and skills:

Help charities with your OR skills

The OR Society's Pro Bono OR scheme connects skilled analysts with charities and other third sector organisations for short term projects.

Volunteer with Pro Bono OR

Inspire the next generation of OR people

The OR Society's OR in Education programme (ORiE) needs your help to run workshops and reach out to the next generation of OR practitioners and academics.

Volunteer with ORiE