By Chris Smith

The IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence (IEEE WCCI) took place in Beijing, China, from the 6th – 11th July. It is the largest technical event in the field of computational intelligence and incorporates three conferences: The 2014 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN 2014), the 2014 IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems (FUZZ-IEEE 2014) and the 2014 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (IEEE CEC 2014). There were around 1300 delegates, with both oral and poster presentations being presented in 16 parallel sessions over 5 days. There were also plenary presentations and panel sessions from academics from all three disciplines and several papers and posters were presented by academics and students from Surrey.

The conference was held at the Beijing International Convention Center (BICC), which is located near to the Olympic Park. This allowed for an enjoyable walk each morning, although it was regularly in the mid to high 30’s, so made for a sticky start to the day. Excursions to the Great Wall and Summer Palace, as well as down town to Tienanmen Square were a must and enjoyed by most who attended the conference.

There were many opportunities to discuss your work with leading academics in your field, as well as gain new contacts. The conference organized several meals, including a welcome dinner on the 6th and a well attended banquet in the middle of the week. Prizes were awarded to a number of prominant researchers from the three research disciplines during the banquet, as well as for work presented at the conference. I was fortunate to be a finalist in the best CEC paper award, coming second, where I was invited on stage to receive my certificate.

This conference has allowed me to speak to a number of people about my work, as well as meet people whose work I have previously read and cited, so feel it has been a success. The three individual conferences (IJCNN, FUZZ-IEEE and IEEE CEC) are held separately in 2015 and would highly recommend to others in the NICE research group to submit to one of these conferences. The next IEEE WCCI conference will be held in 2016, when all three conferences will be held together.