Technical Committees
Technical Committees (TCs) shall organize the technical activities of IFAC. TCs with related scope cooperate within a Coordination Committee (CC), whose chair is a member of the IFAC Technical Board (TB) and reports to TB about all activities of the TCs under their supervision.
Structure of the IFAC Technical Board during the 2026-2029 triennium
TCs are composed of the following individuals
- TC Chair
- TC Vice-Chairs
- TC Senior Members
- TC Members
As decided by Council in 2020, all people involved in IFAC activities are expected to be Affiliates. This includes TC Chairs and Vice-Chairs, TC Members and Senior Members.
Affiliation is free of charge and requires only filling in a limited amount of data (name, email, country/region) in the IFAC Portal (affiliates.ifac-control.org). Affiliates are also strongly encouraged to enter data about their fields of interest. These are defined by the keywords of each TC. By default, the data about affiliates is accessible only for establishing statistics. If agreed by the Affiliate, his/her/their data is accessible to other Affiliates, and hence to the TC Chairs.
Technical Committee Members
The TC Members are chosen at each triennium among:
- Past TC members
- Affiliates proposed by NMOs
- Affiliates invited by the incoming Technical Committee Chair
The final decision on the TC Members roaster is made by the incoming TC Chair in coordination with the outgoing TC Chair and include the following criteria:
- Being active in the field covered by the TC. This is attested by having selected the TC related keywords in the Affiliates Portal, participating to conferences or other events sponsored by the TC, being member of the program committees of conferences sponsored by the TC.
- The list of TC members should be representative of the IFAC diversity in terms of countries and regions, career stage, academia and industry, gender, etc.
- There is no limit on the number of members of a Technical Committee, but it is expected to be a representative subset of all Affiliates interested in the field who deserve acknowledgement for their technical activities and volunteering engagement.
TC Members are appointed for a given triennium and are listed as such in the Affiliates Portal. Their membership is attested by a certificate that can be downloaded directly from their affiliates profile.
Technical Committee Senior Members
The TC Senior Members are chosen at each triennium among:
- Past TC Senior Members
- Past TC Members proposed to become Senior Members by the incoming Technical Committee Chair, after discussions with the outgoing Technical Committee Chair.
The final decision on the TC Senior Members roaster is made by the Coordinating Committee Chair and include the following criteria:
- Being highly active in the field covered by the TC and its activities, for a significantly long period of time.
- The list of TC Senior Members should be representative of IFAC diversity.
The maximal number of Senior Members of a Technical Commi8ee is limited as a percentage of all Members (including Senior Members). The ratio may be changed by a decision of the Council and is at the time of the publishing this article of 30%.
Technical Committee Vice-Chairs
Vice-Chairs will be appointed by the Technical Board Chair, but otherwise the internal structure is up to the committee itself. Vice-Chairs should be TC Members but are not requested to be Senior Members.
It is requested that Vice-Chairs include:
- Vice-Chair for Education
This Vice-Chair serves as liaison person with the Education Activities Committee. Their role is to promote education activities within the TC and to report about these to the Education Activities Committee. - Vice-Chair for Industry
This Vice-Chair serves as liaison person with the Industry Committee. Their role is to encourage industry related activities within the TC, to invite people in industry to become affiliates and participate to the TC, and to report about these to the Industry Committee. - Vice-Chair for Publications
This Vice-Chair interacts with the Publications liaison member of the Technical Board. Their role is to promote submissions to IFAC journals for example by encouraging TC related special issues. - Vice-Chair for Social Media
This Vice-Chair interacts with the Social Media liaison member of the Technical Board. Their role is to transfer possible content about TC activities to Secretariat for publication in the IFAC media and to post autonomously such information in the social media according to the IFAC Social Media strategy.
