At the heart of IFIP lie its Technical Committees that, between them, count on the active participation of some two thousand people world-wide. There are twelve such Committees. Each Technical committee is, in effect, a management team responsible for a given field of activity and for the work of from five to thirteen Working Groups, a total of 106. These Groups work in a variety of ways to share experience and to develop their specialised knowledge. These include open conferences, smaller working conferences, seminars and tutorials, circulated papers and, increasingly, as befits our subject, electronic conferencing and e-mail.
Many IFIP events are linked to publications and there are annually some 30 to 40 IFIP books.
A vital element of IFIP’s communication with its Members and with all who participate in its work is the IFIP Newsletter published quarterly in both hard copy and electronic form (http://www.ifip.org/newsletters/newsl.html).
IFIP enjoys friendly co-operation with a number of international organisations. First among these is UNESCO with which IFIP maintains a formal consultative relationship. UNESCO has commissioned from IFIP several projects and supports the participation of some people from developing countries in IFIP events. IFIP is a Scientific Associate of ICSU (International Council of Scientific Unions). There are four international federations with which IFIP collaborates : - IFAC (International Federation of Automatic Control), - IMACS (International Association for Mathematics and Computers in Simulation), - IFORS (International Federation of Operational Research Societies) and - IMEKO (International Measurement Confederation).