OR practitioners have had an interest in supporting community development for almost half a century – well before the term ‘community operational research’ was first coined in the mid-1980s. While the initial focus in the 80s was serving community groups (grassroots citizen movements), it quickly became evident that communities often wanted to address highly complex social and environmental issues that required the involvement of public, private and voluntary sector organizations too. Indeed, projects were often initiated and funded by these organizations. Nevertheless, the defining feature of Community OR remained the meaningful engagement of communities and concerned citizens.

Community OR is now at an exciting point in its development, with the potential for major innovations. This is because of a renewed interest in both Europe and the USA, which coincides with growing activity in pro-bono (volunteer) OR and a diversification of applications in developing countries. In addition, the increasing importance of environmental issues to local and global communities offers new opportunities to support those communities in making a difference. Finally, new approaches to data analytics offer the potential for innovation but also bring with them a significant challenge: how to ‘democratize’ their use so communities, and not just large public and private sector organizations, can directly benefit. These are the contexts in which we call for papers for a special issue of EJOR on Community OR, focused on innovations, internationalization and agenda-setting applications.

The Editors of this special issue of EJOR are Michael Johnson (University of Massachusetts

Boston, USA) and Gerald Midgley (University of Hull, UK). They have each edited books on Community OR that have consolidated and promoted the field on their own sides of the Atlantic (Midgley and Ochoa-Arias, 2004; Johnson, 2012). Their collaboration on editing this special issue marks a desire, not only to share learning across the USA and Europe, but also to form a truly global research community, showcasing a wide range of international innovations and applications.