The 'PROMETHEE' adventure

The author has been Professor Operational Research (OR) from 1963 to 2007 at both the VUB and the ULB Universities of Brussels. On January 22, 2014, his former collaborators (Cathy Macharis, Yves De Smet and Bertrand Mareschal) organised a workshop on the 'PROMETHEE' multicriteria decision aid (MCDA) procedure, the author having been the initiator of this methodology in the 1980s. Over 60 participants attended this workshop and 25 research papers were presented. As it has been an important research field in his scientific carrier, the author has been invited by the organisers of the workshop to give a survey paper on this subject. He felt particularly honoured by this initiative and accepted with pleasure the invitation. This paper includes a brief overview of OR from 1937 till now, the role of the outranking procedures in the field of MCDA and the PROMETHEE methodology including its extensions being of course stressed. Some proposals for further research and developments are suggested. A 'Jean-Pierre Brans-PROMETHEE prize' has been awarded to the best contribution presented at the workshop, and a foundation to support such an activity each year will be established in a near future.