Parallel methods for ODEs

In recent years there has been considerable interest in exploiting parallel computers for the efficient solution of ordinary differential equations. Because initial value problems are by their very nature sequential it can require considerable ingenuity to construct and implement efficient methods which take advantage of parallelism (see, for example, the monograph of Burrage (Oxford University Press, 1995)). Although it is not possible to cover all of these new approaches in one special issue, this issue does attempt to convey the flavour of this research across a wide variety of techniques. Parallel techniques for solving differential systems such as