Founded in 1985, the IFCS is a federation of national, regional, and linguistically-based classification societies. It is a non-profit, non-political scientific organization, whose aims are to further classification research. Amongst other activities, the IFCS organises a biennial conference, publishes a newsletter, and supports the Journal of Classification (JoC) and the journal Advances in Data Analysis and Classification (ADAC).

Hans-Hermann Bock has written a history of the IFCS (PDF file, approx. 9 megabytes). Further information about the activities of the federation can be obtained in its governance documents, or by contacting the IFCS Secretary.

IFCS Flyer (PDF file, approx. 128KB)

The seventeenth biennial meeting of the Federation, IFCS 2021, will take place in Porto, Portugal from August 24-28, 2020. Conference website: https://ifcs2021.fep.up.pt/

Details, including application information, for awards related to IFCS 2021 will be available shortly after the formation of the award committee.

Information on how to become a member society is in the member societies area.

The Report of the President from the 2017 IFCS Council meeting, which was held in Tokyo, is available here.