OR Spectrum (2009) 31:461–463 DOI 10.1007/s00291-009-0165-8 EDITORIAL Logistics network design Stefan Nickel · Francisco Saldanha-da-Gama Published online: 13 February 2009 © Springer-Verlag 2009 In the last decade, logistics network design has attracted the attention of many research- ers. The strategic nature of many network design decisions together with the need to integrate them with tactical and operational decisions explains why the topic has become of common interest for communities such as those working in Logistics, Transportation and Location Theory. The importance of the topic has been also rec- ognized by the European Federation of the Operational Research Societies (EURO) when promoting a EURO Winter Institute on Location and Logistics, which was held in Estoril, Portugal, in January 2007. This event was a privileged forum for discussing relevant issues, models and techniques in logistics network design. In order to collect a representative set of works in the topic, the idea of a focused issue in OR Spectrum was born and was positively supported by the former and current Managing Editors, Hans-Otto Günther and Stefan Minner, respectively. The call for papers resulted in the submission of 15 papers covering different aspects in the topic. The peer-review process resulted in eight accepted papers. Criteria in the refereeing process have been the originality of the work, the relevance and applica- bility of the problem studied, the technical quality of the paper and the quality of the results achieved. It should be emphasized that not all the 24 laureates in the EURO Winter Institute on Location and Logistics were encouraged to submit a paper to this S. Nickel (B ) Lehrstuhl fur Operations Research und Logistik, Universitat des Saarlandes, Postfach 151150, Geb. A5 3, 66041 Saarbrücken, Germany e-mail: s.nickel@orl.uni-saarland.de F. Saldanha-da-Gama Departamento de Estatística e Investigação Operacional, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, Bloco C6, Piso 4, 1749-016 Lisbon, Portugal e-mail: fsgama@fc.ul.pt 123