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Policies & Procedures - 6.9 Emerging Technologies Committee

- approved 2001, updated 4/2011, 12/2011, 5/2012

Purpose

The IEEE Communications Society fosters the timely dissemination of technical information in emerging technology areas that are of high interest to its members. It encourages and provides assistance to members with common interest in a new technology area to form a small activity group with the expectation that such a group may eventually evolve into a full-fledged technical committee under the Society's Technical Affairs Council (TAC). The small activity group will be called a sub-committee reporting to the chair of Emerging Technologies Committee (ETC). The following are the policies and procedures governing the formation of such sub-committees.


Organizational Structure

This Committee consists of a Chair serving concurrently with the President, appointed by the President with the recommendation of the Vice President – Technical Activities from among the members of the Strategic Planning Committee, at least one other member of the Strategic Planning Committee and others members appointed by the Chair with the consent of the Vice President – Technical Activities.  The committee will have six members appointed for three years with one-third appointed each year.  In addition, the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Communications Magazine and the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications are members of the committee.


Formation of Technical Sub-Committees in New Technology Areas

Members of the Society interested in organizing new technical groups should submit a written proposal to the VP of Technical Activities (Chair of TAC), copied to the chair of Emerging Technologies Committee. The proposal should include the following sections:

  • Name of the proposed sub-committee
  • Scope of technical activities to be pursued
  • Rationale for organizing the sub-committee (e.g. activities currently pursued by other technical groups or related societies)
  • Proposed activities
  • Proposed officers (chair, vice-chair, secretary, and any other positions)
  • Proposed budget for the first two years
  • Signature of 10 IEEE members interested in becoming members of the sub-committee

The VP of Technical Activities will evaluate the proposal in consultation with the chair of Emerging Technologies Committee and members of the Technical Activities Council and make decision to approve or reject the formation of the sub-committee. The new sub-committee can then be organized with an approval and will report to the chair of Emerging Technologies Committee.

The chair of Emerging Technologies Committee will assist the proposed officers to organize the sub-committee and commence its stated activities. The ETC chair will help the sub-committee to obtain the necessary resources from the Society and IEEE to sponsor such activities.

The VP of Technical Activities, together with the chair of Emerging Technologies and members of the Technical Affairs Council, will annually review the progress of the sub-committee and make one of the following decisions at the beginning of each calendar year:

  • Continuation of the sub-committee
  • Termination of the sub-committee (Note: Such decision should not be made for sub-committees that have been formed for less than 1 year)
  • Recommend that the status of the sub-committee be changed to that of a full-fledged technical committee, in accordance with the Society's Constitution and Bylaws.

If ETC recommends that the status of the sub-committee be changed to that of a full-fledged TC, the following should be carefully considered.

  • the new TC areas/topics are broad enough to merit creation of a TC.
  • the new TC does not have too much overlap with an existing TC or another IEEE Society. 


Name Change for an Existing Technical Subcommittee

  • Chair sends a proposal to Emerging Technology Committee stating reasons for the name change. 
  • ETC will evaluate the request and make their recommendation to VPTA who will evaluate the proposal in consultation with the Technical Activities Council to ensure there is no conflict/overlap with another TC area.  The VPTA will inform the Board of Governors in his/her next written report to the BoG.