EATCS

EATCS is a European learned society dedicated to the promotion of research and education in theoretical computer science. It serves as a hub connecting researchers, educators, and practitioners through publications, conferences, and awards, fostering links across institutions such as École Normale Supérieure, University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, ETH Zurich, and Max Planck Society. Its activities intersect with communities found at International Congress of Mathematicians, ACM SIGACT, SIAM, Royal Society, and national academies like the French Academy of Sciences and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

History

The organization was founded in 1972 by European scholars responding to developments at institutions including Université Paris-Sud, University of Vienna, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, and Politecnico di Milano. Early contributors came from research centers such as IBM Research, Bell Labs, Bristol University, and Bell Labs Holmdel collaborators who had ties to events like the International Conference on Automata, Languages and Programming and seminars at Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques. Prominent figures in its formative decades had affiliations with University of Manchester, Princeton University, Harvard University, Stanford University, and University of California, Berkeley, reflecting transatlantic exchanges with conferences such as Symposium on Theory of Computing and Annual ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing. Over time the society established relationships with publishers and learned societies like Springer Science+Business Media, Elsevier, Cambridge University Press, and Oxford University Press to disseminate results originating from workshops at Göteborg University and colloquia at CERN.

Organizational structure

The society is governed by an elected board with officers who have held posts while affiliated with organizations such as TU Wien, Uppsala University, University of Copenhagen, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, and Eindhoven University of Technology. Advisory committees often include members from CNRS, FWO, ERC, and national research councils who coordinate with institutional partners like University of Warsaw, Università di Roma La Sapienza, Charles University, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, and Universität Bonn. Regional chapters and working groups maintain ties to networks such as European Research Council Advanced Grants recipients and collaborative projects involving Horizon 2020 and programs linked to European Molecular Biology Laboratory—while maintaining liaison with international counterparts at ACM, IEEE, and SIAM. Administrative functions are carried out in cooperation with secretariats previously hosted at academic centers like University of Geneva and University of Ljubljana.

Publications and journals

The society sponsors a variety of publications including monograph series and proceedings published by houses such as Springer, Elsevier, and Cambridge University Press, often originating from conferences held at venues like Palazzo Vecchio, Royal Holloway, and ETH Zurich. Its flagship material complements journals published by professional organizations such as ACM Transactions on Algorithms, SIAM Journal on Computing, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, Journal of the ACM, and Theoretical Computer Science. Contributors frequently hail from research groups at MIT, Caltech, Imperial College London, Université Libre de Bruxelles, and University of Toronto. Edited volumes and proceedings include contributions referencing work associated with laboratories and projects at Los Alamos National Laboratory, ENS Lyon, Weizmann Institute of Science, and Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.

Conferences and events

The society organizes and endorses conferences and workshops with historical links to events such as STOC, FOCS, ICALP, ESA, and the Workshop on Algorithms and Data Structures. Host cities have included Paris, Berlin, Prague, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Lisbon, and Rome, with satellite meetings co-located with symposia at University of Edinburgh and Trinity College Dublin. Invited speakers at plenary sessions have been associated with institutions like Columbia University, Yale University, University of Chicago, University of Melbourne, and National Taiwan University. The society also collaborates on summer schools and tutorial series with centers including Hausdorff Center for Mathematics, Institut Mittag-Leffler, BIRS, and Santa Fe Institute which attract participants from labs such as Google Research, Microsoft Research, Amazon Science, and startup incubators linked to Silicon Roundabout.

Awards and recognitions

The society bestows prizes and fellowships honoring achievements comparable to accolades from Turing Award laureates, recipients of the Gödel Prize, Knuth Prize, and national honors from bodies like Royal Society, Academia Europaea, and the National Academy of Sciences. Awardees have been affiliated with universities including Cornell University, Johns Hopkins University, Northwestern University, Brown University, and University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign. The recognition program highlights contributions spanning algorithm design, complexity theory, automata theory, and computational geometry, often paralleling fellowships and grants from Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions and prizes connected to institutions such as Institut Pasteur and Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award.

Category:Theoretical computer science societies