IEEE wishes to congratulate the winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics and Chemistry as awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The Nobel Prize is widely considered one of the world’s most prestigious awards and has been honoring individuals from around the world for outstanding achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and for work in peace since 1901. In celebration of this achievement by these scientists and authors, IEEE has developed a listing of some of the laureates’ published works for both Physics and Chemistry that include a sampling of articles related to these achievements in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library. All of the sample articles listed are available free to access for a limited period of time.
Winners in Physics
IEEE congratulates Ferenc Krausz, Pierre Agostini, and Anne L’Huillier on winning the 2023 Nobel Prize for Physics. The prize was awarded jointly to the three scientists “for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter.” According to the announcement from the Nobel Foundation, the laureates’ contributions have “enabled the investigation of processes that are so rapid they were previously impossible to follow.”
It further explains that there are “potential applications in many different areas. In electronics, for example, it is important to understand and control how electrons behave in a material. Attosecond pulses can also be used to identify different molecules, such as in medical diagnostics.”
Winners in Chemistry
IEEE also congratulates Moungi G. Bawendi, Louis E. Brus, and Alexei I. Ekimov on winning the 2023 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. The prize was awarded jointly to the three scientists “for the discovery and development of quantum dots, nanoparticles so tiny that their size determines their properties.”
According to the announcement from the Nobel Foundation, the laureates’ contributions have “succeeded in producing particles so small that their properties are determined by quantum phenomena. The particles, which are called quantum dots, are now of great importance in nanotechnology. Quantum dots now illuminate computer monitors and television screens based on QLED technology. They also add nuance to the light of some LED lamps, and biochemists and doctors use them to map biological tissue.” It further explains that “in the future they could contribute to flexible electronics, tiny sensors, thinner solar cells and encrypted quantum communication.”.
You can find many more articles related to the topics of electron dynamics, attosecond pulses, quantum dots and related technologies in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library.
IEEE Technical Activities is committed to publishing cutting-edge research dedicated to developing solutions for many critical climate change issues. As a researcher, consider publishing your climate change research in one of IEEE’s upcoming special sections:9ta0
We have reached the end of the year, a good time to reflect on what we accomplished and look forward to what comes next.
Our strategic priorities for 2023 include participation in the IEEE-wide efforts in Climate Change and Sustainable Technologies, imagining future products and services and new audiences, providing value to and growing existing audiences, and building on our diverse and inclusive community including implementation of the new IEEE Fellows process. We also take a look at exemplars for leveraging cross-cutting technology areas via collaboration among TA entities, increasingly important for addressing the technology grand challenge problems of our time. Lastly, we will take a look at the TA Tech Talk series.
Climate Change Technologies
This IEEE-wide grand challenge effort has achieved implementation across the Institute, with efforts leveraging all the strengths of the IEEE. For Technical Activities (TA), we look to our strengths in content creation realized through convening world-class conferences and meetings, curating and disseminating information through top publications, and aligning with the IEEE Ad Hoc Committee to Coordinate IEEE’s Response to Climate Change (CCIRCC) TA has responded with a core TA Program in Climate Change, supported by the Future Directions Committee convening of a virtual meeting covering the broad prospectus of IEEE capabilities in climate change technologies. We have created a steering committee to determine a sustainable path forward for the TA Climate Change efforts, which is examining options including continuing as a TA Program as well as forming a Technical Community 2.0 to build a community in the space that can create and cosponsor conferences and publications capable of generating resources to support its mission activities including outreach and engagement of the general public, media, and policymakers, as well as industry practitioners and the R&D community from academia, industry, and government. The efforts to seed activity this year will continue to bear fruit in the form of robust activity going forward, and we look forward to the next chapter in this story.
New Products and Services
At the start of 2023, TA took over the 2022 Board of Directors activity in Data-based business strategy to seek a way to valorize the massive IEEE data holdings in the engineering and technology space. That activity has resulted in key new product concepts.
AskIEEE is a technology encyclopedia in your pocket, with user profiles tailored to user contexts ranging from K12 students and educators to the general public, to college students, media and policymakers, and investors, practicing engineers, and researchers. AskIEEE can provide encyclopedic information appropriate for the context of the user and add value through cross-reference to relevant products, services, and events. For example, in a query about 4G versus 5G technologies, the K12 student and general public might receive information on basic differences in capability in terms of range, speed, and latency. The media or policy maker might additionally receive contact information for IEEE experts willing to be interviewed or testify to a parliamentary body. Practicing engineers might receive links to standards and specifications, while researchers might be connected to research articles on the topic. Queries in each category might also produce information on experience-appropriate educational materials and information on upcoming nearby meetings, workshops, and other events related to the topic. An AskIEEE prototype was demonstrated recently at Sections Congress. Development continues as the engine is trained against additional information.
Efforts continue to valorize the vast amounts of technology data produced and curated by IEEE, as well as the usage of data to understand emerging technology trends continues. Beneficiaries of such a product could include venture capitalists, Wall Street investors, chief technology officers, and many more. The goal is to improve the efficiency of the use of capital in advancing technology, clearly symmetric with the IEEE mission of advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. Incorporating fast-breaking technology insights delivered through more than 2,000 IEEE conferences is a real challenge and will require the support of TA’s 47 Societies and Councils to achieve. This tool will also benefit IEEE in spotting emerging trends early, enabling us to build early support for nascent technical communities to bring them into the IEEE family.
Inclusion and Diversity
TA continues to focus on inclusion and diversity, integrating the multi-dimensional concept throughout operations. The TAB Committee on Diversity and Inclusion (CDI) is currently conducting a climate survey of TAB which will provide valuable information on the current state and help set baseline metrics against which to measure progress. The CDI Award Subcommittee (chaired by Prof Elza Erkip) met to complete their evaluation of the eight nominations that were submitted this year. We are looking forward to the presentation of the Award at the November 2023 IEEE Technical Activities Board meeting in Washington, D.C. We would like to challenge Societies and Councils to work with the TAB CDI and the IEEE WIE to come up with ways to recognize achievements in diversity and inclusion in their events and activities.
IEEE Fellows Process
Implementation of the new IEEE Fellows process is in progress this year. While the resulting changes challenged deadlines for getting all the components in place, the benefits should outweigh the initial pain of making the change. Society and Council Fellows evaluators will have more input into the program, which was very important, especially for smaller fields of interest. We also have new categories which clarify the many different metrics that support elevation to Fellow status, as well as a more deliberate effort to build nominee pools beyond individual networks to ensure many diversity dimensions are considered that may be underrepresented in nomination networks, including geographic, career path and role, and gender. Now that much of the transition is complete, we anticipate next year will be easier, as we also see the benefits reflected in the next Fellows class.
Society and Council Partnership
I have had the opportunity throughout the year to attend the Administrative Committee (AdCom) or Board of Governors (BoG) meetings of several Societies and Councils. In particular, we discussed the Technical Activities strategy to better support our community and beyond with the latest technology information delivered through events, publications, and other products and services, with more planned for the months ahead. For me, it is a great opportunity to learn more about the myriad fields of interest within TA while sharing strategic opportunities with our top leaders.
Notable outcomes of which we are particularly proud include the 25th anniversary of the Sensors Council, which has achieved an amazing level of collaboration with 26 Societies. We are pleased to see that the Transportation Electrification Technical Community, officially becomes the Transportation Electrification Council (TEC) in 2024 with a seat on TAB. TEC will sign an MOU at the November OU series to share IP with the Industry Applications Society, Power and Energy Society, and Power Electronics Society. TEC has 18 society partners. Given the cross-cutting nature of many technology grand challenges, this level of partnership is an excellent demonstration of the impact of IEEE’s technology prowess.
TA Tech Talk
We hosted technology and innovation expert Mark Moran of John Deere at the Chicago Operating Unit (OU) series in June for the inaugural TA Tech Talk, with great audience engagement, login with your IEEE credentials to access the recording. The next TA Tech Talk will take place at the November OU series and will feature semiconductor expert Falan Yinug, Director of Economic Strategy at Qualcomm. Falan was previously Director of Industry Statistics and Economic Policy at the Semiconductor Industry Association. We anticipate a lively discussion!
John P. Verboncoeur, IEEE Vice President of Technical Activities, discusses the growing impact of open access and how IEEE continues to adapt and evolve
As a growing number of authors in the STM community increasingly choose to publish via gold fully open access options to increase the visibility of their research to more users and optimize impact, IEEE is making important strides to provide a broader portfolio of open access options for these authors. By growing and adapting our portfolio in this way, it enables IEEE to continue to fulfill its mission and vision to drive global innovation through broad collaboration and the sharing of knowledge. IEEE’s ability to adapt is more important than ever today as, according to a recent report from the STM Association, more than a third of all global research articles are now published open access. The report goes on to state that.the percentage of newly published articles made available via gold full open access between 2012 and 2022 has increased from 9% to 35%, an almost four-fold increase.
IEEE works to support all authors globally with more choices
As these trends continue to evolve, IEEE has worked to rapidly expand opportunities to publish for our authors and meet author needs by providing new pathways to publish OA and developing new initiatives that support open science. IEEE recognizes that many authors prefer to publish OA to optimize the visibility of their research or have a need to meet the requirements of research funder mandates. Since IEEE strives to support all authors and readers globally, we aim to offer any author a publication venue that is compliant with their circumstances, regardless of their funding status, the publishing mandates they may have in place, or where in the world they may work.
IEEE launches new open access options for authors
In 2020, in an effort to meet the evolving needs of authors, IEEE launched new fully open access journals in a wide range of technologies including biomedical engineering, computing, nanotechnology, power electronics, telecommunications, vehicular technology, and more..This is in addition several other existing open access titles such as IEEE Photonics Journal and IEEE’s most popular interdisciplinary OA journal, IEEE Access. IEEE has continued to rapidly expand this portfolio and today offers more than 30 fully open access journals, in addition to over 170 hybrid journals that offer an open access option. With all of these options in place, IEEE has reached a milestone of over 1 million open access articles published in 2023.
Maintaining journal quality in the open access model
One of the concerns stated in some circles of the scholarly community related to the open access model is the question of maintaining journal quality. The concern is that the typical gold OA model requires an author to pay article processing charges (APCs) to publish OA and that this may incentivize some publishers to publish a much greater quantity of articles to optimize revenue. This type of behavior could in turn diminish the overall quality of the corpus of scientific literature available to the research community. In fact, in a recent article from Science, it was announced that nearly two dozen journals from two of the fastest growing open-access publishers will no longer receive a journal impact factor, one of several key metrics used to evaluate journal quality.
When IEEE launched its new open access journals, we listened to these concerns and took action to ensure the proper safeguards are in place to protect journal quality, regardless of publishing model. Independent editorial boards were developed for each journal to drive IEEE’s commitment to publish high-quality articles and breakthroughs in technology innovation. Each new open access journal is required to follow IEEE’s established high standard of peer review and publishing principles, drawing on expert technical communities to continue to meet or exceed the same high quality as our premier subscription titles.
In addition, IEEE continues to build an integrated ecosystem with other publishers to scale up the detection of research misconduct in scholarly publishing. This commitment helps IEEE to maintain the health of the scholarly record, uphold publishing ethics and the detection of research misconduct.
IEEE’s commitment to quality shines through
As a result of the commitment to quality, IEEE’s open access publications have made significant strides in a very short period of time to meet IEEE quality standards. In June 2023, IEEE announced that 12 of IEEE’s new fully open access journals were accepted into the Web of Science Core Collection™ by Clarivate and received their first Journal Impact Factors according to the 2022 Journal Citation Reports (JCR) from Clarivate, released in 2023. According to Clarivate, the Web of Science Core Collection™ follows a unique selection process conducted by expert in-house editors using a set of 24 quality criteria designed to select for editorial rigor and best practice at the journal level. The IEEE journals listed above successfully met this set of quality criteria within just a few short years of launch and were entered into the Clarivate Emerging Sources Citation Index™ (ESCI).
In addition, the JCR study reveals that IEEE hybrid journals, all which all offer an open access option to authors, continue to maintain rankings at the top of their fields based on key methods of citation measurement including Impact Factor, Eigenfactor and Article Influence Score. In fact, IEEE has 15 of the top 20 journals in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, 10 of the top journals in Telecommunications and 5 of the top 10 in Artificial Intelligence by Journal Impact Factor. IEEE Access, IEEE’s largest fully open access publication, is ranked as the No. 1 journal by Eigenfactor in Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications.
IEEE’s support and commitment to open science
IEEE is continually working to develop more tools, services, and publication opportunities for authors and researchers to help increase the exposure of their work. To that end, IEEE has also introduced the following open science initiatives to further support researchers and enable greater discoverability of their research:
TechRxiv™ – a free preprint server for unpublished research to help authors share early results and discoveries ahead of formal peer review and publication
IEEE DataPort™ – an online platform that enables researchers to easily share, access, and manage datasets in one trusted location, with an option to post open access
Code Ocean – an easy-to-use platform in which users can share and run code in the cloud to enable reproducibility of results
Compliance with funder mandates
In addition, IEEE recently committed its full portfolio of more than 170 hybrid journals to transformative status, enabling any Plan S funded author to publish OA in any hybrid title.This transition to Transformative Journal status is another demonstration of IEEE’s ongoing commitment to working with institutions and funders to provide sustainable open access publishing opportunities to authors that allow for a wider dissemination of knowledge and enables authors to maximize exposure of their research.
IEEE forms transformative open access agreements with Institutions
Finally, I wanted to note that IEEE offers flexible open access programs designed to make it convenient for institutions to support and manage costs for authors and simplify the publishing process by paying for APCs in advance. IEEE now has new options for any size organization, designed to make it easy for institutions to assist their authors and demonstrate their support for open access. You can view a list of approximately 500 institutional agreements on IEEE Open to find out if your institution has an agreement with IEEE.
As you can see, IEEE has expanded its open access options significantly in recent years and continues with several new OA publications coming soon in 2024. This evolution is an indication of IEEE’s ongoing support and commitment to open science and in enabling all authors to continue to publish in the publication of their choice to share their research with the scholarly community.
For more information on IEEE open access solutions, please visit open.ieee.org.
The IEEE Smart Cities Technical Community is leading the way as the first pilot for the TAB Technical Community 2.0 (TC 2.0) Ad Hoc. The TC 2.0 Ad Hoc Committee with the Smart Cities pilot continues to learn from each other and build the TC 2.0 infrastructure, governance, and framework together. Participation in a TC 2.0 is open to anyone with interest in the subject area, including non-IEEE members.
As a TC 2.0 entity, Smart Cities is empowered to grow and innovate within a lightweight, operational framework that reduces the burden on the TAB infrastructure and supports long-term sustainability, and continued success.
TC 2.0 aims to offer a new option for an overall structure and business process for new and emerging areas across Technical Activities, to assist in the support and consolidation of IEEE activities across a broad set of technical, socio-economic, and ethical focus areas. TC 2.0 aims to support the IEEE 2023 focus areas of innovation, coordination, cooperation, and communications.
Smart Cities originated as an initiative within IEEE Future Directions with funding from TAB and the New Initiatives Committee (NIC). The Smart Cities Technical Community brings together a broad array of IEEE’s technical societies and organizations helping to advance state-of-the-art technologies for the benefit of society and to set the global standard by serving as a neutral broker of information amongst industry, academic, and government stakeholders.
The IEEE Smart Cities mission is to foster technological innovation and excellence in smart city technologies and systems for the benefit of humanity and society. As a community, IEEE Smart Cities envisions being a leading professional organization that engages stakeholders in the development of sustainable, resilient, equitable, and privacy-respecting smart city technologies and systems that address diverse community needs. The volunteer and expert-led IEEE Smart Cities Technical Community will achieve this vision as a cross-disciplinary platform for research, development, technical standards, and professional educational materials.
There are six (6) IEEE partner organizational units who contribute to the Smart Cities Technical Community strategic and operational activities. Included are Industry Applications Society, Power and Energy Society, Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society, Intelligent Transportation Systems Society, Council on Electronic Design Automation, and Council on RFID. Further, potential new partners are in the process of joining the technical community.
Sign-up to Stay Informed
Here are some of the products and services that have been developed and made available.
Currently, Smart Cities has an open call for city/municipality projects that have successfully leveraged smart city technologies and innovation. If you have successfully completed a project by March 2023 that highlights smart cities technology and innovation, please apply (by June 30, 2023) to be considered for the2023 IEEE Smart Cities Award. Contest finalists will receive a qualified endorsement from IEEE to establish your projects credibility for implementing future projects.
ISC2 is the flagship IEEE Smart Cities event which brings together practitioners, city policymakers and administrators, infrastructure operators, industry representatives and researchers to present technologies and applications, and to share their experiences and views with current and future Smart Cities applications. In its ninth year, the conference includes keynote and panel session discussions, tutorials given by experts on state-of-the-art topics, and special sessions on emerging topics with the aim of complementing the regular program. ISC2 2023 will be held in Bucharest Romania, 24-27 September.
Please reach out with any questions and comments via Kathy Grise, k.l.grise@ieee.org.
The mid-point of the year is a good time to take stock of progress on our priorities. Our strategic priorities in 2023 include timely issues like engagement on climate change and sustainable technologies, imagining future products and services and new audiences, providing value to and growing existing audiences, and building on our progress of becoming a more diverse and inclusive community.
Progress on Climate Change Technologies
As we discussed in the previous Technical Activities (TA) Spotlight, climate change is an overarching effort across IEEE, and is clearly linked to the mission to advance technology for the benefit of humanity. We have made progress with the IEEE Ad Hoc Committee to Coordinate IEEE’s Response to Climate Change (CCIRCC) . The CCIRCC seeks to elevate the climate change technology related activities across IEEE, under an OU Outreach subcommittee led by Past VP of Technical Activities Bruno Meyer. Past VP-TA Roger Fujii leads a subcommittee looking at business models. Other subcommittees are looking at outreach and governance models.
The Technical Activities Climate Change Program
The Technical Activities Climate Change Program, led by Wei-Jen Lee, is looking at a number of aspects of climate change technologies. TA is looking at how best to implement recurring events and publications in climate change technologies, including moving from a TA Program to a more advanced Technical Community 2.0 that could include both IEEE members and non-members and could manage conferences and publications.
Progress on New Products and Services
Since we discussed AskIEEE last time, it has received funding to expand beyond the initial proof of concept. As you may recall, AskIEEE is an AI-driven technology encyclopedia app that provides answers to technology questions tailored to the profile of the user, including pre-college students, general public, college students, media and public policy makers, investors, practicing engineers and technologists, and researchers We hope to expand further with the assistance of Societies and Councils into their various areas of expertise.
Efforts continue to valorize the vast amounts of technology data produced and curated by IEEE, as well as the usage of data to understand emerging technology trends continues. Beneficiaries of such a product could include venture capitalists, Wall Street investors, chief technology officers, and many more. The goal is to improve the efficiency of the use of capital in advancing technology, clearly symmetric with the IEEE mission of advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. Incorporating fast-breaking technology insights delivered through more than 2,000 IEEE conferences is a real challenge, and will require the support of TA’s 47 Societies and Councils to achieve.
Progress in Inclusion and Diversity
TA continues to focus on inclusion and diversity. I had the chance to attend the Women in Engineering (WIE) Committee meeting in Atlanta in early May, and discussed the opportunities such as the TA Entrepreneurship mentorship program that aims to increase the participation of women in entrepreneurship. Indeed, I am wearing the purple IEEE WEI t-shirt as I write this. We look forward to recognizing the recipient of the 2023 TAB Award for S/C Impact in DEI to be confirmed at the June TAB meeting. The TAB Committee on Diversity and Inclusion (CDI) Award Subcommittee (chaired by Prof Elza Erkip) met to complete their evaluation of the eight nominations that were submitted this year. The Award will be presented at the November 2023 IEEE Technical Activities Board meeting in Washington, D.C. We would like to challenge Societies and Councils to work with the TAB CDI and the IEEE WEI to come up with ways to recognize achievements in diversity and inclusion in their events and activities.
Society and Council Strategic Planning
I have been privileged to attend the Administrative Committee (AdCom) meetings of several Societies and Councils, and in particular discuss the Technical Activities strategy to better support our community and beyond with the latest technology information delivered through events, publications, and other products and services, with more planned for the months ahead. For me, it is a great opportunity to learn more about the myriad fields of interest within TA while sharing strategic opportunities with our top leaders.
TA Tech Talk
We are looking forward to hosting John Deere technology and innovation expert Mark Moran at the Chicago OU series on Friday, June 16, night. Mark discusses the evolution of technology in agriculture in general and tractors specifically. Modern farm equipment combines sensors, data and compute with actuators and more to become a field laboratory and factory on one chassis.
Stay informed on climate change activities from IEEE by either joining the IEEE Climate Change Technical Community or signing up to receive the IEEE newsletter on Climate Change.
IEEE Education Week events hosted by the IEEE Sri Lanka Section featured panel discussions, talks, and workshops that attracted hundreds of university students and teachers
IEEE Members across the globe celebrated IEEE Education Week from 2 to 8 April 2023. The annual weeklong celebration included participation from more than 75 IEEE Operating Units, Regions, Sections, and Technical Societies that highlighted educational opportunities such as live and virtual events, online resources, and special offers on educational products and services. The week culminated with an online quiz that awarded digital badges to participants who correctly answered questions about IEEE educational offerings.
“IEEE Education Week shows the collective impact IEEE has on lifelong learning and education at every level,” said Jamie Moesch, Managing Director, IEEE Educational Activities. “From pre-university STEM programs and university offerings to continuing professional education courses and tutorials, IEEE Education Week highlights the many ways to engage with education across the enterprise. This week was about bringing those resources together in one place and making sure our members and volunteers know about all of the amazing educational opportunities available to them.”
IEEE Education Week Participants
The target audiences that most benefit from participating in IEEE Education Week include:
Engineers and professionals working in technical fields,
University students and faculty members, and
Teachers, parents and anyone seeking pre-university STEM education resources to inspire the next generation of engineers and technologists.
“Thanks to our partnership with IEEE Technical Activities and its many Societies and Councils, IEEE Education Week was able to showcase resources for our members that can help them enhance their skills and get ahead of the curve in the ever-changing landscape of engineering and technology. IEEE Education Week was also a great way to highlight all of the easy-to-use, free resources available for members to help inspire and teach the next generation about engineering,” stated Rabab Ward, Vice President, IEEE Educational Activities.
Wide Variety of Events Available On-Demand
Below are just a few of the events held during IEEE Education Week, most of which remain accessible for on-demand access:
A live, in-person two-day event hosted by the IEEE Sri Lanka Section was the first of its kind IEEE Education Week to be held in the section and one of this year’s most successful and largest ones celebrated by any IEEE section. More than 50 IEEE volunteers who represented all 21 student branches in the country helped to organize the activities. The event featured panel discussions, talks, and workshops that attracted hundreds of university students and teachers.
Educational Resources
In addition, the IEEE Education Week website also highlights resources shared by various IEEE Organizational Units, some of which include:
IEEE TryEngineering Lesson Plans: Easy-to-use, simple, and engaging activities and lesson plans to help teach engineering concepts to pre-university students, with examples such as:
IEEE TryEngineering Tuesday: A live and on-demand webinar series featuring IEEE Technical Societies with related activities for pre-university students, such as
IEEE Innovation at Work: Subscribe to read and learn about the latest headlines and information about emerging technologies, education, and training for technical professionals.
“Education is the foundation for a successful future and should never be taken for granted. Educational Activities in IEEE provides members with opportunities to achieve success in advancing technologies and communities. With the support of the Ambassador Program, I wish every member in the Region can be supported to seize the chance to learn and grow,” said Dr. Chi-Un “Leon” Lei, Chair of the IEEE Region 10 (Asia-Pacific Region) Educational Activities Committee.
IEEE Education Week 2023 proudly reported the following stats:
3,200 visitors to the IEEE Education Week website from 2-8 April 2023, from 150 countries
180+ global events posted to the site supported by more than 150 Volunteer Ambassadors
125+ resources provided
Participation by 75+ Operating Units, Regions, Sections, and Technical Society Partners
Join us for the next global IEEE Education Week scheduled for 14 to 20 April 2024. IEEE-affiliated groups can participate by offering events, resources, and special offers (such as discounted courses, reduced membership fees, etc.).
Check out the IEEE Education Week video to learn more about this annual event and how to get involved.
Follow updates on social media via #EducationAtIEEE and sign up for email updates at educationweek.ieee.org.
Thirty-five technologists from around the globe came together as part of an ongoing effort to develop the IEEE Computer Society’s Technology Predictions Report for 2023. In Q4 2022, these technology experts met to come up with the 19 trends most critical to engineering today [see endbar.]
The report not only produced this list, but also delivers a comprehensive analysis of each technology’s predicted success, the potential impact on humanity, predicted maturity, and predicted market adoption, and includes horizons for commercial adoption opportunities for academia, governments, professional organizations, and industry.
2023 Report Objectives
An annual work effort, the group does not make predictions for fortune’s sake, but rather, the work aligns with the goal of encouraging deeper community engagement around the topics which have broad backing; strong, diverse, research interests; and the potential to provide maximum societal benefits.
“Our goal with this year’s report was to align with IEEE’s mission of advancing technology for the benefit of humanity,” said Dejan Milojicic, former IEEE CS president (2014) and current Distinguished Technologist at Hewlett Packard Labs. “These predictions not only look to developments with individual technologies but also consider their impact on the world.”
A Methodical Approach
In preparing the report, IEEE experts developed a comprehensive list of highly cited research initiatives and technology topics. The report committee then evaluated each of those technology areas through the lens of the following criteria:
– Predicted technology success in 2023
– Potential for impact on humanity
– Predicted maturity in 2023
– Predicted market adoption in 2023
Over the course of a month, the team took systematic, iterative steps and reviewed a long list of technologies in consideration. Through dialogue and collaboration, the committee ultimately evolved the list by removing, merging and refining, and finally confirming the remaining technologies.
Members then evaluated each technology left on their list by grading them (A-F) on the above-referenced specifications, ultimately culminating in a comprehensive grade that secured their ranking on the list. The intent was to present the impact on humanity as a function of technological advancement, also qualifying those by relative maturity, market adoption, and positioning in time-to-adoption [see graphic].
“So often industry predictions are predicated on market spend, dynamics, and product developments, and while that is accurate, it doesn’t always capture the wider lens of potential,” remarked Milojicic. “We really strove to balance near-term implications with a broad array of possibilities to support the research community and funding agencies in identifying areas of potential this year and into the future.”
Predictions in Action
In fact, the group hoped that this methodical approach would help industry corporations and governments in prioritizing investments and academia and professional organizations in focusing annual efforts.
“The report does not stop at the predictions themselves, but it goes on to make recommendations for diverse organizations in our fields, including industry, academia, governments, and professional organizations, such as IEEE,” summed up Milojicic.
These predictions have already been backed up by analyst assessments. For example, the week following the initial release of these predictions, Research and Markets issued a report that indicated the global health and fitness tracker market will reach $10.5 billion in five years, and emphasized a burgeoning migration of medical device technology into general health, fitness, and well-being solutions. Reports of the remote healthcare and wearables space have continued to emerge over the past month, reiterating their importance in the global economy and supporting the predictions.
“IEEE offers unique perspectives that have elements of what market analysts firms do, as well as technology consulting firms,” said Nita Patel, 2023 IEEE CS president. “What differentiates us is tying the technology benefits to the benefit of humanity and engaging a diverse, representative group of scientists and engineers in culling the landscape to pinpoint the most impactful and evolving areas of our disciplines.”
Contributors
The team of technology experts contributing to these predictions represents a mix of IEEE volunteer leaders (TAB VP, IEEE president elect, IEEE CS president, FDC chair, and others) and technology executives across industry, academia, and governments (fellows, VPs, CTOs, professors, technical managers, and more). Specifically, this year’s report contributors included: Ali Abedi, Mohamed Amin, Rosa M Badia, Mary Baker, Greg Byrd, Mercy Chelangat, Tom Coughlin, Jayakrishnan Divakaran, Paolo Faraboschi, Nicola Ferrier, Eitan Frachtenberg, Ada Gavrilovska, Alfredo Goldman, Francesca, Iacopi, Vincent Kaabunga, Hironori Kasahara, Witold Kinsner, Danny Lange, Phil Laplante, Katherine Mansfield, Avi Mendelson, Cecilia Metra, Dejan Milojicic, Puneet Mishra, Chris Miyachi, Khaled Mokhtar, Bob Parro, Nita Patel, Alexandra Posoldova, Marina Ruggieri, Roberto Saracco, Tomy Sebastian, Saurabh Sinha, Michelle Tubb, John Verboncoeur, and Irene Pazos Viana.
What’s Next
Throughout the course of the year, technology prediction team members will be monitoring progress in the predicted technology areas, and at the close of 2023, they will evaluate how their predictions measure up. Check back in December 2023 to access the official scorecard for this year’s forecast.
“We don’t just want to throw our ideas out there and then let them float on the wind,” explained Milojicic. “We will hold ourselves accountable and will evaluate how accurate our predictions are at the end of the year and make that information available to the community. Each year, we refine our process, strengthening how we approach this important job, and a review of our work makes that possible.”
He continued, “This work is designed to be a vehicle to inspire the engineering community in new ways and spark new ideas. It’s a privilege to be a contributor, and I’m honored to be a part of this effort.”
Ranked to present each advancement’s potential impact on humanity as a function of technological advancement, qualified by relative maturity, market adoption, and positioning in time-to-adoption, following are the top trends of 2023:
With designs becoming increasingly complex, practicing engineers are challenged with finding the information they need scattered across multiple sources. Sourcing relevant and trustworthy results are often frustrating and time-consuming.
IEEE DiscoveryPoint for Communications(™) aims to solve these problems by providing, on a single platform, a range of relevant, current, and reliable product design and development information, and ultimately, allowing them to improve their workflow.
BENEFITS OF IEEE DISCOVERYPOINT FOR COMMUNICATIONS
● Find answers to technical questions by referencing trusted, relevant content from multiple high-quality sources, including full-text IEEE publications.
● Avoid time wasted searching multiple databases and find all the information you need—cutting-edge research, industry standards, parts & components, white papers, news and commentary, and more—in a single platform.
● Easily obtain project-specific information by searching expertly curated content that covers every aspect of communications technology, including trending topics such as 5G, edge computing, big data, and more.
● Discover practical industry data and solutions for real-world design challenges with resources tailored to support engineers in industry.
DISCOVERY OF DIVERSE, CURATED CONTENT
DiscoveryPoint accesses more than 1 million full-text research documents; over 10,000 technical standards; 7,500 online courses; 1,400 eBook titles; 18 million parts and various solutions from manufacturers and distributors; and 1,100 industry and product news bulletins, blogs, white papers, and more.
“There’s nothing on the market right now that fully supports the workflow of the design engineer and that delivers all the information needed in one place,” says Mark Barragry, senior product manager for corporate markets for IEEE Global Products and Marketing. In designing IEEE DiscoveryPoint, he says, “We reconstructed the work process of a product design engineer and put together a set of resources that meet all the information needs they would have during a standard product-development cycle.”
FOCUS ON COMMUNICATIONS CONTENT
IEEE has a wealth of content for telecom designers, Barragry says.
IEEE publishes nine of the top 10 most-cited journals in telecommunications. More than 40 percent of the U.S. patents related to telecommunications cite an IEEE publication. The organization also sponsors more than 2,000 conferences, many of which focus on communications, networking, and broadcast technologies. And the IEEE Standards Association has developed more than 900 standards related to communications, including the popular IEEE 802.11 WiFi standard.
Barragry adds design engineers who tested the platform before launch said they liked that it came from IEEE, who they saw as a trusted source.
A COMPLETE SOLUTION FOR PROBLEM-SOLVING
The results are organized into channels and categorized by type of material, such as research papers, standards, books, or industry news, to make it easier for time-strapped engineers to scan and discover content faster. For each search result, a machine-learning feature examines the document and automatically generates a short summary of key points, so engineers can quickly determine what is relevant to the task at hand and what they can skip.
Over 30 curated Dashboards also provide quick access to current coverage of hot topics that engineers in communications need to understand and track, such as WiFi 6, cloud computing, IoT, and blockchain.
THE FUTURE OF IEEE DISCOVERYPOINT
IEEE DiscoveryPoint for Communications has already added various new content sources to the platform including more news outlets, eBooks collections, and standards bodies. The tool will soon have a channel dedicated to content created by IEEE’s many societies and welcomes engagement from IEEE entities with relevant communications content to participate.
IEEE is also planning extensions of this product portfolio to other industries and is currently performing in-depth research into potential sectors and practicing engineer workflows.
