Maths TCC Follow-on-Fund: A National Taught Course Centre in Operational Research (NATCOR): 2011-2016

数学 TCC 后续基金：运筹学国家讲授课程中心 (NATCOR)：2011-2016

• 批准号: EP/J500938/1
• 负责人: Adam Letchford
• 金额: $ 19.11万
• 依托单位: Lancaster University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Training Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2011 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FJ500938%2F1
• 关键词: Maths; TCC; Follow; Fund; National

The concern to broaden and deepen UK doctoral study in the mathematical sciences was felt with particular force within the Operational Research (OR) community. As a consequence, NATCOR has enjoyed a very strong level of community support since its foundation in 2006. NATCOR's choice of a residential course model for delivery in part reflected a belief in its effectiveness in fully engaging participants and in part stemmed from an aim to build a larger and more strongly connected community of PhD students in OR to the longer term benefit of UK research in the subject. This latter aim has been strikingly fulfilled and the sense of a strong UK PhD community in OR is now palpable, with a newly established student conference effectively a NATCOR spin-off. The decision to offer five week-long courses meant that we could offer a curriculum sufficiently comprehensive in its coverage of the mathematics of OR. The choice of a two-year delivery cycle for the curriculum was dictated by a practical concern to have a sufficiently large student population (ie, of first and second year PhD students) to guarantee viability. The feedback we have received from students, supervisors, the wider community and recently from the EPSRC-commissioned DTZ reports suggest strongly that all of these basic design decisions have been vindicated as have other choices concerning NATCOR's structure for management and administration. We do not propose to make changes to these basic elements of NATCOR for the upcoming five-year period. Further, NATCOR will continue to profit from the support of both the OR Society and the Smith Institute for the period 2011-2016. Recent steps to make NATCOR more effective have included (i) the introduction of one-day workshops to complement two of our core courses and broaden their scope, (ii) an extension of the management team (Executive Committee) which now includes representatives of ten universities, (iii) engagement with the IMA to raise awareness of NATCOR more broadly, (iv) the commissioning of a new professionally designed website to more effectively promote course participation and facilitate course registration. Over the period 2011-2016 we plan to further strengthen NATCOR (inter alia) by (i) mitigating the risk of a downturn in student numbers by recruiting from as wide a student population as possible, (ii) conducting a major review of course content, (iii) facilitating formal assessment of students, (iv) continuing to subject all provision to rigorous evaluation, (v) continuing to bear down on costs such that the provision can be offered over the next five years with fee levels which are little changed from those at present, (v) evaluating NATCOR's impact on students' doctoral education and career choices and (vi) working toward sustainability post 2016.

运筹学（OR）界对扩大和深化英国数学科学博士研究的关注尤其强烈。因此，NATCOR 自 2006 年成立以来一直享有非常强大的社区支持。NATCOR 选择住宿课程模式进行授课，部分反映了对其充分吸引参与者的有效性的信念，部分源于在 OR 中建立一个更大、联系更紧密的博士生社区的目标，以实现英国该学科研究的长期利益。后一个目标已经得到惊人的实现，英国 OR 博士社区的氛围现在显而易见，新成立的学生会议实际上是 NATCOR 的副产品。提供为期五周的课程的决定意味着我们可以提供足够全面的涵盖 OR 数学的课程。选择两年的课程交付周期是出于实际考虑，即拥有足够多的学生群体（即一年级和二年级博士生）以保证可行性。我们从学生、导师、更广泛的社区以及最近 EPSRC 委托的 DTZ 报告中收到的反馈强烈表明，所有这些基本设计决策以及有关 NATCOR 管理和行政结构的其他选择都已得到证实。我们不建议在未来五年内对 NATCOR 的这些基本要素进行更改。此外，NATCOR 将在 2011 年至 2016 年期间继续受益于 OR Society 和史密斯研究所的支持。最近为提高 NATCOR 的效率而采取的措施包括 (i) 推出为期一天的研讨会，以补充我们的两门核心课程并扩大其范围，(ii) 扩大管理团队（执行委员会），目前包括十所大学的代表，(iii) 与 IMA 合作，以更广泛地提高 NATCOR 的认识，(iv) 启用一个新的专业设计网站，以更有效地促进课程参与并促进课程的开展 登记。在 2011 年至 2016 年期间，我们计划进一步加强 NATCOR（除其他外），包括 (i) 通过从尽可能广泛的学生群体中招收来减轻学生人数下降的风险，(ii) 对课程内容进行重大审查，(iii) 促进对学生的正式评估，(iv) 继续对所有规定进行严格评估，(v) 继续压低成本，以便可以在 未来五年的费用水平与目前相比变化不大，(v) 评估 NATCOR 对学生博士教育和职业选择的影响，以及 (vi) 努力实现 2016 年后的可持续发展。