How to deliver a successful research work in 2022: Focus on routing and logistics

Research is challenging and fascinating. It requires knowledge, skills, creativity. In this talk I will present a discussion on the key ingredients for a successful research work in Operational Research, with a focus on routing and logistics problems. Specifically, I will start from a general perspective on research work: how to choose the topic, how to convince readers (and general audience) that your research is relevant, how to present your research – with a focus on quantitative research. Then, I will move to successful research on routing and logistics. The analysis will start from detecting what are current hot research topics and how to identify them. It will then continue with presenting some recent challenging trends that are attracting high interests, both in terms of scientific contributions and of real applications. The emphasis will be on practical impact, modelling and methodological contributions and relevance of the research work for the scientific community, funding entities and industrial stakeholders.