In 1999 IFORS established a special program, called IFORS Distinguished Lectures (IDL), to recognize distinguished OR scholars and analysts and support member societies and regional groupings. Through this program IFORS is sponsoring lectures by distinguished OR scholars and analysts at conferences of members societies and regional groupings.
| Year | Distinguished Lecturer | Conference |
| 2019, June | William J. Cook | EURO 2019 |
| 2018, August | Leo Liberti | APORS 2018 |
| 2018, July | Cynthia Barnhart | EURO 2018 |
| 2016, November | Rolf H. Mohring | INFORMS Conference 2016 |
| 2016, July | Dimitris Bertsimas | EURO 2016 |
| 2016, October | Monique Guignard-Spielberg | CLAIO 2016 |
| 2015, July | R. Tyrrell Rockafellar | 27th European Conference on Operational Research, Glasgow, Scotland |
| 2015, June | Rüdiger Schultz | CORS/INFORMS International Conference, Montreal, Canada |
| 2014, November | Lyn C. Thomas | INFORMS Conference, San Francisco |
| 2014, October | Sheldon Ross | ALIO-SMIO Joint Conference, Monterrey, MX |
| 2013, October | Pascal Van Hentenryck | 2013 INFORMS Conference Minneapolis, MN, USA |
| 2013, July | John D.C. Little | 26th European Conference on Operational Research, Rome, Italy |
| 2012, October | Paolo Toth | INFORMS Conference, Phoenix, Arizona, USA |
| 2012, September | Silvano Martello | CLAIO/SBPO, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |
| 2012, July | Ralph Gomory | EURO Conference, Vilnius, Lithuania |
| 2012, June | Brenda Dietrich | INFORMS Conference, Beijing, China |
| 2011, November | Yves Crama | INFORMS, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA |
| 2010, December | Jonathan Rosenhead | APORS, Penang, Malaysia |
| 2010, July | John F. Nash Jr. | EURO, Lisbon, Portugal |
| 2010, June | Garrett Van Ryzin | ALIO/INFORMS, Buenos Aires, Argentina |
| 2009, July | Jonathan P. Caulkins | APORS 2009, Jaipur, India |
| 2009, July | Christos Papadimitriou | EURO XXIII, Bonn, Germany |
| 2009, June | Richard Karp | CORS-INFORMS 2009, Toronto, Canada |
| 2008, October | Michel Balinski | INFORMS, Washington, DC, USA |
| 2008, September | Stavros Zenios | ALIO, Cartagena de Indias, Columbia |
| 2007, November | Ralph Keeney | INFORMS, Seattle, Washington State, USA |
| 2007, July | Robert Bixby | EURO, Prague, Czech Republic |
| 2006, November | Martin Grötschel | ALIO, Montevideo, Uruguay |
| 2006, July | Saul Gass | EURO, Rejkjavik, Iceland |
| 2006, May | Egon Balas | CORS, Montreal, Canada |
| 2006, January | Dominique de Werra | APORS, Manila, Philippines |
| 2005, November | Luk Van Wassenhove | INFORMS, San Francisco, USA |
| 2004, October | Andres Weintraub | ALIO, Havana City, Cuba |
| 2004, July | Michael Pinedo | EURO, Rhodes, Greece |
| 2004, May | Ralph Gomory | CORS/INFORMS, Banff, Canada |
| 2003, December | Toshihide Ibaraki | APORS, New Delhi, India |
| 2003, October | Jan Karel Lenstra | INFORMS, Atlanta, Georgia |
| 2003, July | Richard Rosenthal | EURO, Istanbul, Turkey |
| 2002, November | David Ryan | INFORMS, San Jose, California, USA |
| 2002, October | Michael Florian | ALIO, Concepcion, Chile |
| 2001, July | Donald Ratliff | EURO, Rotterdam, Netherlands |
| 2001, May | Bernard Roy | CORS, Quebec City, Canada |
| 2000, September | Nelson Maculan | ALIO, Mexico City, Mexico |
| 2000, July | Jong-Shi Pang | APORS, Singapore |
| 2000, July | George Nemhauser | EURO, Budapest, Hungary |
| 2000, May | Thomas Magnanti | INFORMS,Salt Lake City, Utah, USA |
| 1999, May | William Pierskalla | INFORMS, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA |