Due to teaching capacity constraints, the Faculty of Economics and Business may not be able to offer the MSc programme in Operations Research in the form indicated on this website.

There is no generally accepted single definition for Operations Research (OR), or as it is also referred to, Management Science.
In short however, it can be described as:

The field of applied analytical methods for decision making in logistical business environments.

Students involved in OR, develop and use mathematical and computational methods, which help to evaluate, improve or resolve operational and logistical issues in business or industrial situations.

OR deals with questions such as:

• How can we model a complex production line or a hospital department so as to evaluate its performance and compute the effect of possible changes?
• Should service capacities be pooled, such as check-in counters at airports, call centre agents in contact centres or MRI-scans in hospitals?
• How much blood must be donated and produced at blood banks in order to minimise shortages, wastage and costs?
• How can we establish minimal cost routing and distribution schemes?
• How much, of which, product mix should a firm produce?

Students become familiar with practical questions and possible approaches through both theoretical and practical (two case) courses. They also have the opportunity to undertake an internship as part of their Master's thesis.

Studying Operations Research at the University of Amsterdam

The programme offers:

• a well balanced curriculum with advanced Deterministic and Stochastic Operations Research courses as well an Applied Operations Research-stream.
• opportunities for additional elective courses or a practical internship.
• practical experiences and contacts leading to specialized case courses and possibilities for thesis topics.
• teaching staff with established scientific records and reputations in deterministic (TSP, heuristics, scheduling, inventory theory) and stochastic (queuing, queuing-networks, Markov decision theory) OR.
• excellent career prospects for Graduates of Operations Research.

Top 5 reasons to study here

The Faculty of Economics and Business:

• has an excellent reputation
• has a diverse international student body
• is surrounded by many multinational firms and organisations
• has low tuition fees for EU students
• has a central location in the multicultural city of Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands and the world's most multi-cultural city. Its population of 750,000 inhabitants contains 177 nationalities, more than New York City. It is a centre of culture, commerce and entertainment and the faculty's central location means students have every opportunity to enjoy student life.

Rankings and reputation

The University of Amsterdam offers a world class education:

• 63rd in the world and 1st in the Netherlands (QS World University Rankings 2011)
• in top 50 of Social Science Universities (Times Higher Education rankings 2011)
• member of LERU (League of European Research Universities), exclusive network of renowned research universities
• member of Universitas 21, network of 21 leading research-intensive universities in 13 countries.
• the Amsterdam Business School has the prestigious EQUIS accreditation (European Foundation for Management Development)