This volume of Mathematical Programming, Series B (MPB) contains 29 high quality articles in the area of integer programming and combinatorial optimization. Extended abstracts of these articles have previously appeared in the proceedings of the 24th Conference on Integer Programming and Combinatorial Optimization (IPCO), held on June 21–23, 2023, in Madison, Wisconsin, USA. The proceedings volume, also published by Springer in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science series, volume 13,904, comprises 33 extended abstracts, out of 119 submissions, that were selected and presented at IPCO 2023.

The IPCO conference is under the auspices of the Mathematical Optimization Society and is held every year. The conference is a forum for researchers and practitioners working on various aspects of integer programming and combinatorial optimization. The aim is to present recent developments in theory, computation, and applications in these areas. The first IPCO conference took place at the University of Waterloo in May 1990. More information on IPCO and its history can be found at www.mathopt.org/?nav=ipco.

All authors of extended abstracts that were accepted for IPCO 2023 were invited to submit full journal papers to be considered for publication in this special volume of MPB. As compared to the IPCO extended abstracts, the full journal papers are on average twice as long, containing full proofs, extensions of the preliminary results, etc. The submitted papers underwent a fully-rigorous refereeing process, and this volume contains the papers that were accepted after possible revisions. These papers that now appear represent a snapshot of the very best of an exciting and vibrant domain within mathematical programming.

We thank all authors and in particular the referees who reviewed the papers thoroughly and in a timely manner, helping us to complete this special issue. We also thank Andrea Lodi, the Editor-in-Chief of MPB, for his excellent cooperation.