About the Society
The Cybernetics Society holds seminars and conferences, and engages in other activities to encourage public understanding of science and to extend and disseminate knowledge of cybernetics and its associated disciplines. The Society aims to support the Continuing Professional Development of its members. The Cybernetics Society is a member society of the International Federation for Systems Research and is affiliated to the World Organisation of Systems and Cybernetics. The Cybernetics Society is authorised by Friendly Societies Act 1974 and reports its affairs to the Financial Conduct Authority.
The Cybernetics Society is one of the few organisations where people can meet to discuss a wide range of interdisciplinary subjects ranging from Artificial Intelligence, the Internet, the sciences, engineering, design, system organisation, consciousness, architecture, biology, psychotherapy, sociology, design, ecology, economics etc. Our regular events (online) and the annual conference, along with special interest groups and website facilitate interest and shared learning. We use one of cybernetics’ own concepts, variety, in our policy to welcome all kinds of people with equal respect and irrespective of their various ethnic, gendered and religious characteristics. We normally only accept adult members, however.
Membership can derive from any of the many fields in which cybernetics is an influential discipline, or from an interest in learning cybernetics.
Rules, and Policies of the Society
The Rules of the Society are available here.
Any changes to the Rules must be approved by Members and be in line with the regulatory framework set out in the Friendly Societies Act 1974.
Membership
The Society welcomes and actively seeks new members that who support the Objects of the Society and the Rules in general, which implies a reasonable interpretation and appreciation of the field of cybernetics.
There are currently 5 types of Membership: Associate or Student Associate, Member, Fellow, Distinguished Life Member, and Honorary Fellow. From the age of 70, a person can elect and pay for life membership rather than annual membership.
Associate & Student Associate
Associates benefit from all the services and facilities of the Society available to other members excepting only the right to vote in General Meetings (e.g. the AGM). The current annual subscription for Associates is £30. However, for bona fide students of courses approved for the purpose by the Council it is reduced to £10.
Member
To be a Member someone needs to have demonstrated a good working engagement with significant aspects of cybernetics and its reasoning at the equivalent of degree-level ability, or above. Members (except those who are three months or more in arrears with their subscriptions) will be entitled to use the initials ‘MCybS’ after their names..
The current annual subscription for Members is £30.
Fellow
The Council may at its absolute discretion elect to the membership grade of Fellow of the Society any member whose knowledge and use of cybernetics has led them to produce useful innovation(s), invention(s), or novel insight(s) whether theoretical or practical in effect, which is considered at least equivalent to contemporary docotral degree standards by any recognised method including any of our own published criteria. Fellows (except those who are three months or more in arrears with their subscriptions) will be entitled to use the initials ‘FCybS’ after their names.
The current annual subscription for Fellows is £30.
Distinguished Life Member
The Council may exempt from future payment of subscriptions any member who has rendered distinguished services to the Society. Members so exempt shall retain all the rights, privileges and benefits of membership.
Honorary Fellow
The Council may recommend, for election by a General Meeting as Honorary Fellows of the Society, persons of distinction who have contributed to the advancement of cybernetics. Honorary Fellows will be entitled to all the rights, privileges and benefits of membership but shall not be required to pay any subscription.
Lifetime Membership
Any member over the age of 70 may request to transfer their existing membership to the equivalent Lifetime membership on payment of a one-time subscription of a multiple of the current membership.
Respect for each other
Cybernetics is a science that ‘navigates navigation’: it explains and guides in the domains of autonomous directive activity, including living, learning, organizing, designing, changing, responding, teaching, and making. It is appropriate to do this with the greatest of respect for others in all their diversity and variety. We promote diversity and inclusion in all we do.
The Society is organized and directed by a Council of Management (“Council”), as provided for in its Rules. Members choose the Council members including Trustees, Officers (President and Secretary, Treasurer and Vice President), and other members with various volunteered responsibilities. Members may be recommended or offer to join the Council. CybSoc is therefore a member-led body.
History of the Society
A cybernetics society began in association with a club at Chelsea College and was then formally founded at King’s College London in 1968 after a group of five members conceived of the idea. They were the late Dr Haneef Fatmi, Dr Kevin Clifton, Dr David Hayes, Dr Alan Hill, and Dr Christopher Harris. Haneef Fatmi played a key role introducing many members and supporting the early development along with Dr DJ Stewart and others.
The Society was legally registered as a Specially Authorised Society under the Friendly Societies Act 1974 on 25 June 1976 and called the Cybernetics Society. It is established for the purpose of promoting science, in particular the advancement and diffusion of a knowledge of cybernetics pure and applied and especially promoting the efficiency and usefulness of members of the Society by setting up a high standard of professional education and knowledge. Special authority given on 10 June 1976 under section 7(1)(f) of the Friendly Societies Act 1974 entitles us to award the learned credentials of MCybS and FCybS for Members and Fellows of the Society.
Dr Fatmi’s history of CybSoc
This is a short history of the Society by Dr Fatmi, one of the founders and key early members.
Honorary Fellows
All the Cybernetics Society Honorary Fellows have enlarged the vision of humanity. They include five Nobel Prize winners, most recently the 2020 award to Roger Penrose, an existing Honorary Fellow. Others such as Lovelock have contributed to Noble prizes.
The election of an Honorary Fellow is made by the members (at an AGM) following recommendations by Council. Proposals are invited each year. The award is our highest honour to the general field of research and practice and does not require prior membership of the Society. We also award Distinguished Member status to members who have made an outstanding contribution to the Society or community of cybernetics. At present this has been awarded to Dr D.J. Stewart for his contribution to cybernetic theory (through the ontological concept of imparity in ternary theory, a third member of the structure of the world alongside energy and information). He also contributed over several decades to the Society and to cybernetics, heading teaching at Brunel, as Vice President of CybSoc and its technology developer, and as an outstandingly knowledgeable member of the community.
The award of Honorary Fellow has tended to go to eminent scientists, but the Society also recognises the contribution to the field of practice, where innovations deriving from and/or contributing to cybernetic theory and method have been exceptional. For example an Honorary fellowship was accepted by Dr Carmen Hijosa who is a distinguished designer of fashion items and of an integrated recursive structure of vegan fibral materials (Piñatex), kind engineering processes within a circular economy, and social development initiatives.
The list of Honorary Fellows
- Prof. Sir Eric Ash CBE FRS FREng FIET former Rector of Imperial College
- Prof. Horace Barlow FRS. Visual neuroscientist, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge
- Prof. Stafford Beer. Founder of organizational and management cybernetics
- Sir James Black FRS, Nobel Laureate in Medicine for drug development.
- Sir Walter Bodmer FRS. Head of the Cancer and Immunogenetics laboratory, Oxford
- The late Prof. Sir John Eccles FRS, Nobel Laureate in Neurophysiology.
- The late Prof. Peter Fellgett FRS. Physicist, Professor of Cybernetics at Reading University.
- Prof. Brian Josephson FRS, Nobel Laureate in Physics for his prediction of the Josephson effect.
- Prof. James Lovelock FRS CH CBE. Famous for the Gaia Hypothesis and inventor of the electron capture detector, which contributed to a Nobel prize for its recognition of damage to the ozone layer from chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gases. Author of 13 books.
- Prof. Sir Roger Penrose OM FRS. Professor of Mathematics Oxford University. Nobel laureate 2020 “for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity”.
- Prof. Abdus Salam KBE FRS, Nobel Laureate in Physics.
- Stephen J. Brewis. Cybernetic mathematical modeller, former Chief Research Scientist at BT.
- Prof. Kevin Warwick. 9 Honorary Doctorates, author of 5 books on robotics and cybernetics.
- Prof. Peter Cochrane OBE. FREng. Former Chief Technology Officer at BT.
- Professor Nick Jennings CB, FREng. Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise) Imperial College.
- Prof David Deutsch FRS. Theoretical Physicist at Oxford University, quantum computing pioneer.
- Prof. Brian Collins CB, FREng. Professor of Engineering Policy. Deputy Convenor of UKCRIC.
- Prof. Dr. Fredmund Malik, leading European figure in management cybernetics.
- Prof. Humberto Maturana, Chilean cofounder of the theory of autopoietic biological organization and cognition.
- Dr. Carmen Hijosa, distinguished designer of fashion items and of an integrated recursive structure of vegan fibral materials, kind engineering processes within a circular economy, and social development initiatives.
- Prof. Margaret A. Boden OBE ScD FBA, Research Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of Sussex.
- Prof. Brian Rudall, former Vice-President WOSC/Director of the Norbert Wiener Institute.
- Prof. Raul Espejo, Director of Syncho Research UK, and former Professor of Systems and Cybernetics at the University of Lincoln, UK.