Abstract :
The United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland (UKRI) IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (CIS) chapter endeavors to support the UKRI Computational Intelligence research community in as many ways as possible by collating and making available relevant information and news about computational intelligence research in the UKRI area as well as facilitating knowledge dissemination and interaction among researchers in the region. Currently the chapter is going through a transition phase which saw the re-launch of the website and a number of initiatives which are underway to support the development of the chapter and its aims to contribute towards the progression of computational intelligence research activities and cohesion in the UK and RI and to the success of the society as a whole. The chapter is relatively large, consisting of 205 members including one life member (LM), 6 fellows (F), 34 senior members (SM), 129 members (M) and 36 graduate student members (GSM). The chapter is spread over a wide geographical area, over two islands Great Britain and Ireland with Northern Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales being part of the UK in addition to the Rep. of Ireland, resulting in a dispersion of members over five distinct geographical areas. Over the past two years, efforts have been focused on developing a model to support chapter activities across all regions, with activities in Northern Ireland serving as a template for activities in other regions. This article outlines our progress and experiences to date and our development strategy which we hope to put into action in 2010 to make activities more widespread across the geographical boundaries within the UKRI area, to engage members in all areas and provide a service which can benefit CI researchers across the society, not only in the UKRI.
