Preface to the Special Issue on Matheuristics: Model‐Based Metaheuristics

Matheuristics are methods that exploit mathematical programming techniques in heuristic and metaheuristic frameworks, granting to mathematical programming approaches the problem robustness and time effectiveness that characterize heuristics, or exploiting the mathematical programming model formulation in the customization of a heuristic for specific problems. In fact, progress in mathematical programming has led to a state of the art where exact methods, most notably mixed integer programming solvers, can be effective even in a heuristic context, both as primary solvers or as sub-procedures. This special issue of the International Transactions of Operational Research (ITOR) aims at collecting contributions that define the state of the art of the computational effectiveness and efficiency or the theoretical properties of matheuristics.