M competitions
MOFC is known worldwide for organizing and running “The Makridakis Competitions” (also known as the M Competitions). These are a series of open challenges aimed at improving the theory and practice of forecasting conducted for the last 42 years by forecasting researcher Prof. Spyros Makridakis, intending to evaluate and compare the accuracy of different forecasting methods. The M Competitions have attracted great interest, from both academics and practitioners, by providing objective evidence of the most appropriate way of forecasting and estimating uncertainty.
The M Competitions are empirical studies that compare the performance of a large number of major time series methods, using recognized experts who provide the forecasts for their method of expertise. Once the forecasts from each expert have been obtained, they are evaluated and compared with those from other experts as well as simple benchmark methods. Forecasting competitions assure objectivity while also guaranteeing expert knowledge.
