THE NEW DEVELOPMENT TREND OF OPERATIONAL RESEARCH IN CIVIL ENGINEERING AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AS A RESULT OF COLLABORATION BETWEEN GERMAN–LITHUANIAN–POLISH SCIENTIFIC TRIANGLE

Abstract. In this article the scientific cooperation between the three academic centres from Germany, Lithuania and Poland, represented by Prof. F. Peldschus (Leipzig University of Applied Sciences), Prof. E. K. Zavadskas (Vilnius Gediminas Technical University), and Prof. O. Kapliński (Poznan University of Technology), is presented. Formal meetings have been called Colloquia, and were organized every two years in different academic centres.


Introduction
Active collaboration between German -Lithuanian -Polish scientific triangle caused the new development trend of research. The research areas till 2009 were limited to Operational Research (OR) and Civil Engineering. Prof. E. K. Zavadskas raised the idea to analyse Operational Research and Civil Engineering in the context of sustainability. These issues were analysed at the 12 th colloquium. As the consequence of new trend of research development the EURO Working Group OR in Sustainable Development and Civil Engineering (EWG-ORSDCE) was established. The 12 th Colloquium and establishment of EWG-ORSDCE Multi-Attribute Decision Making". The chairman of International Programme Committee was Prof. Habil. Dr E. K. Zavadskas and responsibility to be the chairman of organizing committee was assumed by one of the first Prof. E. K. Zavadskas' PhD students, now Prof. L. Ustinovičius. The theme of colloquium covered two broadly defined areas: the first one is the development of operational research (OR) methodology and the second -Sustainable Development in Civil Engineering and Management. 56 scientists from 7 European and other countries took part in the 12th German-Lithuanian-Polish colloquium and new participants from Czech Republic, Slovenia, UK, US have joined the scientific collaboration. 43 papers were presented during the meeting and abstracts had been published (Vilutiene 2009).
As a result of unique collaboration between three academic centres during the period of 2007-2009 on the basis of aforementioned themes, the high research achievements were obtained and EWG-ORSDCE was established. The achievements during the period from the 11 th to 12 th colloquia are further analysed in the next section.

The achievements and activities in scientific research during 2007-2009
The achievements gained from 1986 until 2007 were surveyed by (Kapliński 2009a, c;Zavadskas 2008b). The productive collaboration during the period of 2007-2009 resulted in the following achievements divided into these groups: defended postdoctoral and PhD theses; published books, conference proceedings; organized conferences, published research papers in the journals and conference proceedings. The mentioned achievements are further analysed.

Main aspects of research development
The fields of the research concentrate in three broad fields (Fig. 2).
Journal of Business Economics and Management, 2010, 11(2) : building life-cycle, urban development, construction and man-2) agement, maintenance, approaches for construction problems', effectiveness' assessment, automation in construction; Sustainable Development: developing of alternative construction processes, eco-3) nomic and other aspects, sustainable development challenges for business and management in construction enterprises, political influence dimensions of sustainability, technological change, innovation and sustainability, sustainable building design, environmental impact processes.
Broad fields as well as narrow groups compose the goal of EWG-ORSDCE.

Achievements in books, postdoctoral and PhD theses publication
The scientific achievements during the period from the 11th German-Lithuanian-Polish Colloquium until 12th German-Lithuanian-Polish Colloquium are presented in Table 1. As a result of these activities the monographs, manuals, etc. were published covering the following topics: the methods and models in engineering (Kapliński 2007); new construction, urban planning and utilities problems (Liias 2007a); multicriteria solution problem in construction ; construction technology (Zavadskas et al. 2007e); fundamentals of enterprises management (Ginevičius and Silickas 2008); theory of organisation (Ginevičius and Sūdžius 2008); theory and practice of facilities management (Lepkova and Vilutienė 2008); technology of construction processes (Zavadskas et al. 2008i); information and intelligent technologies ); urban sustainability and governance Kaklauskas and Holt-Jensen 2009;Lepkova et al. 2009); construction organization (Zavadskas et al. 2009d); economics for the modern built environment (Ruddock 2009

Publication in journals and proceedings
The research papers during 2007-2009 were published in 29 scientific journals in different research fields. The contribution of each country considering fields of research is presented in Fig. 3   was selected and in the field of Engineering the paper prepared by Zavadskas et al. (2008f) was selected.
The authors of surveyed scientific publications are not necessarily the participants of these aforementioned colloquia but they actively work in achieving the goals of EWG-ORSDCE. These high achievements in publishing articles became the basis for the establishment of EWG-ORSDCE.

Organization of International Conferences
For the scientific activity during 2007-2009 7 international conferences were organized.  selected papers was published . The Special Issue of expanded papers on the basis of this Symposium has been published in scienfic journal Automation in Construction (Kaklauskas et al. 2010;Popov et al. 2010;Ustinovichius et al. 2010;Zavadskas 2010a, b). International Conference "Reliability and Statistics in Transportation and Communica-tion" (RelStat'08) (October15-18, 2008, Riga, Latvia) (Kabashkin and Yatskiv 2008). the 13 th International Conference "Applied Stochastic Models and Data Analysis" ASMDA-2009 (June 30 -July 3, 2009, Vilnius, Lithuania). The Proceedings book has been published ). the 5th International Conference EURO Mini Conference "Knowledge-Based Tech-nologies and OR Methodologies for Strategic Decisions of Sustainable Development" KORSD-2009. Proceedings of selected papers have been published ). In addition Special Issue of the Technological and Economic Development of Economy containing expanded versions of the selected papers will be published.

Establishment of new EURO Working Group EWG-ORSDCE
On the basis of the analysed wide range of topics during the 12th and the previous colloquiums and under the initiative of Prof. Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas the proposal to create EURO working group "OR in Sustainable Development and Civil Engineering (EWG-ORSDCE)" was prepared and presented to the participants of the 12 th German-Lithuanian-Polish colloquium. The scientists approved the proposal by their signatures and decided to submit this proposal to EURO (Association of European Operational Research Societies) Executive Committee during the annual 23rd European Conference on Operational Research "OR creating competitive advantage", which took place in Bonn, Germany, 5-8 July 2009.

Conclusions
The achievements and scientific results of collaboration between German-Lithuanian-Polish scientific triangles give the next trend of OR and Civil Engineering science development including sustainability. The collaboration which took almost 30 years resulted in significant achievements, which were accomplished by approximately 100 participants of this activity.  (3)