Publication Guide
INFORMS - the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences - is the definitive scholarly society for operations research, management science, and analytics. It was formed in 1995 by merging the Operations Research Society of America (ORSA, founded 1952) and The Institute of Management Sciences (TIMS, founded 1953), and is headquartered in Catonsville, Maryland. Unlike the large commercial houses, INFORMS publishes a tightly curated portfolio: 17 peer-reviewed journals, every one of them focused on quantitative decision-making. The flagship titles - Management Science, Operations Research, and Marketing Science - are among the most cited venues in their fields, and 34 Nobel laureates in economics have published across INFORMS journals.
This guide covers how to pick the right INFORMS journal, what each title publishes, open-access options and costs, the double-anonymized peer-review workflow, and how to submit through ScholarOne.
Which INFORMS journal fits your paper?
INFORMS journals are all quantitative, but they differ sharply in scope, methodology expectations, and audience. Use the table below to shortlist.
| You're most likely to... | Choose this journal |
|---|---|
| Have a broad management-science paper with strong methodology and managerial relevance | Management Science - the flagship; wide scope across all business disciplines, highly selective |
| Have a methodological OR paper (optimization, stochastic models, game theory) | Operations Research or Mathematics of Operations Research (for deeper theory) |
| Work on quantitative marketing models | Marketing Science |
| Sit at the OR/computer-science interface (algorithms, computation, ML) | INFORMS Journal on Computing or INFORMS Journal on Data Science |
| Study information systems, platforms, or digital economics | Information Systems Research |
| Study organizations, strategy, or organizational theory | Organization Science or Strategy Science |
| Work on supply chains, service operations, or OM practice | Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (M&SOM) |
| Work on transportation, logistics, or mobility | Transportation Science |
| Have an applied, practice-facing analytics project | INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics (formerly Interfaces) |
| Want a no-fee open-access venue | Stochastic Systems (applied probability) or INFORMS Transactions on Education |
What INFORMS actually publishes
17 peer-reviewed journals, all hosted on INFORMS PubsOnline:
- Flagships - Management Science (est. 1954), Operations Research (est. 1952), and Marketing Science: the field-defining titles in management science, OR, and quantitative marketing.
- Methodology and computing - Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS Journal on Computing, INFORMS Journal on Optimization, INFORMS Journal on Data Science, Stochastic Systems, Decision Analysis.
- Functional and applied - Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Transportation Science, Information Systems Research, Organization Science, Strategy Science, Service Science, INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics, INFORMS Transactions on Education.
INFORMS also publishes the practice magazines and runs the major OR/MS conferences, but the journals above are the peer-reviewed research outlets.
Open access and APCs
INFORMS is primarily a hybrid publisher with a small fully-OA wing:
| Route | Cost | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription (default) | $0 | All hybrid titles publish at no cost to the author; readers access via library subscriptions |
| Hybrid OA - INFORMS Open Option | ~$3,450 per article | Available on most titles; article published CC BY. Verified on the Management Science guidelines - confirm the current fee on your journal's page |
| Fully OA, no APC | $0 | Stochastic Systems and INFORMS Transactions on Education are diamond OA (CC BY, listed in DOAJ) |
| Green OA (self-archiving) | $0 | Posting preprints and accepted manuscripts is permitted - check the per-journal policy for versions and embargo |
| Read & Publish | Covered by library | INFORMS has agreements with select consortia; ask your librarian whether your institution qualifies |
Fee waivers are available - contact INFORMS or check the journal's open-access page. Because fees are revised periodically, always check the current price before submitting.
Peer review at INFORMS
- Model: double-anonymized review is the norm - both authors and reviewers are anonymous to each other.
- Editorial structure: department/area editors plus associate editors; flagship titles aim to reach a decision by the end of the second review round.
- Turnaround: varies by journal; Management Science reports reviewer feedback in roughly 90 days on average. Methodology-heavy titles can take longer.
- Selectivity: the flagships are highly selective; functional titles are selective within their subfield.
How to submit
- Pick the journal using the decision table above, and read recent issues to confirm fit - INFORMS editors reject quickly on scope mismatch.
- Read the author guidelines at pubsonline.informs.org/authors and the journal-specific submission guidelines page.
- Format your manuscript. INFORMS journals use the INFORMS author-year citation style; LaTeX users should use the informs class files. SciSpace hosts formatting templates for INFORMS titles.
- Submit via ScholarOne Manuscripts. Each journal has its own ScholarOne site (e.g., mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ms for Management Science).
- Choose your license at acceptance - copyright transfer for the subscription route, or a CC BY publication license if you take the INFORMS Open Option.
Ethics and integrity
INFORMS is a member of COPE and follows its guidelines on authorship, plagiarism, and retractions, and participates in OASPA and STM good-practice frameworks. As a member-governed non-profit, publishing surpluses support the society's scientific mission rather than shareholders. Data and code disclosure expectations have tightened across the portfolio - Management Science and several sister titles now require data and code availability statements, so prepare replication materials before submission.
