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 Society is authorised under the 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 and beyond. Our regular events (online) and the annual conference, along with special interest groups and our 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.
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
The Rules of the Society are available as a PDF download. 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 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 five types of 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. The current annual subscription for Associates is £30. For bona fide students of courses approved by the Council, the subscription is reduced to £10.
Member (MCybS)
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 will be entitled to use the initials MCybS after their names.
Fellow (FCybS)
The Council may elect to the membership grade of Fellow any member whose knowledge and use of cybernetics has led them to produce useful innovations, inventions, or novel insights — whether theoretical or practical — considered at least equivalent to contemporary doctoral degree standards. Fellows will be entitled to use the initials FCybS after their names.
Distinguished Life Member
The Council may exempt from future payment of subscriptions any member who has rendered distinguished services to the Society.
Honorary Fellow
The Council may recommend, for election by a General Meeting, persons of distinction who have contributed to the advancement of cybernetics. Honorary Fellows are entitled to all rights, privileges and benefits of membership.
Lifetime Membership
Any member over the age of 70 may request to transfer to the equivalent Lifetime membership on payment of a one-time subscription.
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 Council
The Society is organised and directed by a Council of Management, as provided for in its Rules. Members choose the Council members including Trustees, Officers (President, Secretary, Treasurer and Vice President), and other members with various volunteered responsibilities. CybSoc is therefore a member-led body.
View the current CybSoc Council 2025 (PDF).
Governance
The Society is governed by the UK Friendly Societies Act 1974. Under this framework we make regular returns to our regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority. View our page on the FCA register.
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 D.J. 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. 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.
Since 1968, annual conferences were usually held at King's College, London until 2020 when the global pandemic lockdowns began. The Society was maintained for half a century by a series of council members, notably Prof Martin Smith (President), Dr David Dewhurst (Secretary), and Dr D.J. Stewart (Vice President) for the first two decades of the 21st century.
Read Dr Fatmi's history of CybSoc (PDF).
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. The election of an Honorary Fellow is made by the members at an AGM following recommendations by Council. The award is our highest honour to the general field of research and practice.
- Prof. Sir Eric Ash CBE FRS FREng FIET — former Rector of Imperial College
- Prof. Horace Barlow FRS — Visual neuroscientist, Trinity College, Cambridge
- Prof. Stafford Beer — Founder of organisational and management cybernetics
- Sir James Black FRS — Nobel Laureate in Medicine
- Sir Walter Bodmer FRS — Cancer and Immunogenetics laboratory, Oxford
- Prof. Sir John Eccles FRS — Nobel Laureate in Neurophysiology
- Prof. Peter Fellgett FRS — Professor of Cybernetics, Reading University
- Prof. Brian Josephson FRS — Nobel Laureate in Physics
- Prof. James Lovelock FRS CH CBE — Gaia Hypothesis; inventor of electron capture detector
- Prof. Sir Roger Penrose OM FRS — Nobel Laureate 2020 in Physics
- Prof. Abdus Salam KBE FRS — Nobel Laureate in Physics
- Stephen J. Brewis — Cybernetic modeller, former Chief Research Scientist at BT
- Prof. Kevin Warwick — Robotics and cybernetics pioneer
- Prof. Peter Cochrane OBE FREng — Former CTO at BT
- Prof. Nick Jennings CB FREng — Vice-Provost, Imperial College
- Prof. David Deutsch FRS — Quantum computing pioneer, Oxford
- Prof. Brian Collins CB FREng — Professor of Engineering Policy
- Prof. Dr. Fredmund Malik — Leading European management cybernetics
- Prof. Humberto Maturana — Co-founder of autopoiesis theory
- Dr. Carmen Hijosa — Designer, Piñatex circular economy innovator
- Prof. Margaret Boden FBA — Research Professor of Cognitive Science, University of Sussex