Complex Societal Problems in Operational Research

The subject of the field of Complex Societal Problems is handling complex societal problems. The field of Complex Societal Problems focuses on all phases of the problem handling process, from awareness of the problem to evaluation of the interventions. The main question in this field is which combination of methods and tools can fruitfully support a certain moment in the problem handling process. The field combines existing methods and tools from different disciplines with specially developed methods and tools. The field of Complex Societal Problems includes researchers from many disciplines using their disciplinary knowledge for this interdisciplinary field. Complex societal problems are for example problems in the area of transportation like traffic congestion, in the area of healthcare like the HIV/AIDS problem, and environmental problems like water pollution or urban and rural planning problems like floods. Complex societal problems occur in all parts of society and have a great impact on society. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.