Welcome from the IPC Co-Chairs

It is our great pleasure to welcome you to IFAC World Congress 2026.

As IPC Co-Chairs, we have worked diligently to develop a high-quality and well-balanced technical program. A major initiative introduced for IFAC World Congress 2026 is the new Journal Option submission category, which allowed authors to submit their manuscripts simultaneously to the Congress and one of the participating IFAC journals, including Control Engineering Practice, Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, Journal of Process Control, Mechatronics, Nonlinear Analysis: Hybrid Systems, and IFAC Journal of Systems and Control. Guest Editors from these journals also served as Congress editors, and the journal review reports were transferred to and incorporated into the Congress evaluation process. We sincerely thank the Guest Editors and Editors-in-Chief for their invaluable contributions to this initiative.

The IFAC World Congress traditionally receives submissions through the IFAC Technical Committees (TCs) (there are 41 TCs). To better represent emerging and rapidly evolving research areas, this Congress also introduced three New Topics (NT) submission technical areas, including Quantum Systems and Control, Generative AI/LLMs for Robotics and Control, and Fully Actuated Systems and Control.

The Congress received 3,980 technical paper submissions, of which 3,081 were accepted. Excluding late-breaking and tutorial papers, 3,733 regular, invited-session, and open invited-track papers were submitted, and 2,857 were accepted, resulting in an overall acceptance rate of 76.53%.

The review process was supported by 56 editors, 574 associate editors, and 11,839 reviewers, whose dedication ensured a rigorous and fair evaluation of all submissions.

Including plenary and semi-plenary sessions, the Congress features a total of 495 technical sessions. The technical program was made possible through the voluntary efforts of the IFAC community, particularly the Technical Committee chairs, New Topics chairs, editors, associate editors, reviewers, and many other volunteers. During the preparation of the Congress, the International Program Committee held two meetings—one in Stockholm in 2024 and another in Paris in 2025—to coordinate and shape the program.

We hope that IFAC World Congress 2026 in Busan will provide an inspiring forum for exchanging ideas, fostering new collaborations, and advancing the frontiers of systems and control. We wish you a productive conference and an enjoyable stay in Busan.