KLU’s Professor Besiou Contributes to 22nd EurOMA Conference in Neuchâtel

Maria Besiou holding a presentation

Professor Maria Besiou from Kühne Logistics University was invited to be the plenary speaker for a prestigious panel on humanitarian logistics.

The panel discussion focused on the topic of how humanitarian logistics research could become more relevant for practice. Its goal was to bring practice and academia together in order to share experiences and identify the best practices that will make research more relevant to practice. In her presentation, Besiou talked about her experience in conducting the practice-oriented research projects that arise through the KLU students’ internships with humanitarian organization and master theses.

The other panel members were Christophe Hambye (Head of Logistics at ICRC), Gyöngyi Kovács (Hanken School of Economics), and Luk Van Wassenhove (INSEAD). Nathan Kunz (INSEAD & University of Neuchâtel) moderated the discussion. From a multi-disciplinary and cross-functional approach, they discussed the impact of humanitarian logistics research on practice.

Humanitarian logistics plays a central role in disaster response operations, efficiently delivering life-saving items such as medicine and food to disaster victims. Because of its important role, humanitarian logistics has emerged as a growing field of research over the last decade. A large number of academic papers have been published on this topic in recent years.

“Operations Management for Sustainable Competitiveness” was the theme proposed by the 22nd EurOMA Conference. In addition to its well-known strength in financial management, the great need for innovation in the field of operations management is one of the driving forces of the Swiss economy. The extremely high cost of labor compared to the neighboring countries and high exchange rate uncertainty are two of the main reasons for this pressure on innovation. Operations management is indispensable to remaining competitive.