V. Kučera is active in the following professional and learned societies or organizations:
- International Federation of Automatic Control
- American Philosophical Society
- The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
- Academy of Engineering of the Czech Republic
- Czech Society for Cybernetics and Informatics
International Federation of Automatic Control
The International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) is an association of scientific or professional engineering organizations, one from each country, having a strong interest in automatic control. IFAC aims to promote the science and technology of automatic control through technical meetings and publications. Founded in 1958, IFAC has 50 National Member Organizations from all continents. The most important events are the triennial IFAC World Congresses.
The Czech National Member Organization is the Czech Society for Cybernetics and Informatics.
V. Kučera served IFAC in many capacities. Since 1972 he has been a member of the Theory Committee (Technical Committee on Linear Systems since 1993). He was an Associate Editor of Automatica during 1987 – 1996 under the Editor-in-Chief H. Kwakernaak.
V. Kučera was elected to the Council in 1987. He was a member of the Awards Committee (1987 – 1990) responsible for the Young Author Prize. He chaired the Awards Committee during the triennium 1990 – 1993.
V. Kučera is the founder of the IFAC symposia series on System Structure and Control. The series’ first event was organized as a workshop in Prague in 1989. Regularly repeated on a triennial basis in Prague, Nantes, Oaxaca, Foz do Iguacu, Ancona, Grenoble, Istanbul, Sinaia, and Montréal.
The History of IFAC Congresses:
| Moscow | 1960 |
| Basel | 1963 |
| London | 1966 |
| Warszawa | 1969 |
| Paris | 1972 |
| Boston | 1975 |
| Helsinki | 1978 |
| Kjóto | 1981 |
| Budapest | 1984 |
| München | 1987 |
| Tallinn | 1990 |
| Sydney | 1993 |
| San Francisco | 1996 |
| Beijing | 1999 |
| Barcelona | 2002 |
| Praha | 2005 |
| Seoul | 2008 |
| Milano | 2011 |
| Cape Town | 2014 |
| Toulouse | 2017 |
| Berlin | 2020 |
Upcoming IFAC congresses:
| Yokohama | 2023 |
| Busan | 2026 |
| Amsterdam | 2029 |
In 1993, V. Kučera was elected Vice-President and chaired the Technical Board for two triennia (1993 – 1999). Among others, he implemented the current structure of the Technical Board that consists of Coordination Committees, which in turn consist of Technical Committees. V. Kučera was President-Elect (1999 – 2002), President (2002 – 2005), and Immediate Past President (2005 – 2008). He organized the 16th IFAC World Congress in Prague with his team in 2005. With nearly 2,500 participants from 63 countries, the congress was the largest technical event organized in the field of automatic control as of 2005.
IFAC Presidents:
| 1957-1958 | Harold Chestnut (US) † |
| 1958-1960 | Aleksander M. Letov (SU) † |
| 1960-1963 | Eduard Gerecke (CH) † |
| 1963-1966 | John F. Coales (UK) † |
| 1966-1969 | Pawel J. Nowacki (PL) † |
| 1969-1972 | Victor Broïda (FR) † |
| 1972-1975 | John C. Lozier (US) † |
| 1975-1978 | Uolevi A. Luoto (FI) † |
| 1978-1981 | Yoshikazu Sawaragi (JP) † |
| 1981-1984 | Tibor Vámos (HU) † |
| 1984-1987 | Manfred Thoma (DE) † |
| 1987-1990 | Boris Tamm (SU) † |
| 1990-1993 | Brian D. O. Anderson (AU) |
| 1993-1996 | Stephen J. Kahne (US) |
| 1996-1999 | Yong-Zai Lu (CN) |
| 1999-2002 | Pedro Albertos (ES) |
| 2002-2005 | Vladimír Kučera (CZ) |
| 2005-2008 | Wook Hyun Kwon (KR) |
| 2008-2011 | Alberto Isidori (IT) |
| 2011-2014 | Ian Craig (ZA) |
| 2014-2017 | Janan Zaytoon (FR) |
| 2017-2020 | Frank Algöwer (DE) |
| 2020-2023 | Hajime Asama (JP) |
| 2023-2026 | Dongil “Dan” Cho (KR) |
During 2005-2017, V. Kučera continued his service to IFAC on the Board of Trustees of the IFAC Foundation. He coined the Young Author Support Program for the IFAC Congresses and Symposia.
When appointed Life Advisor in 2008, V. Kučera was acknowledged as the longest-serving IFAC Elected Officer. His dedicated service on the Council extended for seven triennia.
V. Kučera received the Automatica Prize Paper Award in 1990 and the Outstanding Service Award in 1996. In 2007, he was elected an IFAC Fellow for his leadership and seminal contributions to control theory. In 2022, at the IFAC Joint Conference SSSC—TDS—LPVS, held in Montreal, he received the IFAC System Structure and Control Lifetime Achievement Award for his fundamental contribution to parameterizing all stabilizing controllers.
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society, the oldest learned society in the United States of America, was founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin for the purpose of “promoting useful knowledge.” The Society sustains its mission in several principal ways. It honours and engages distinguished scientists, humanists, social scientists, and leaders in civic and cultural affairs through elected membership and opportunities for interdisciplinary, intellectual fellowship. It supports research and discovery through grants and fellowships, lectures, publications, prizes, exhibitions, and public education. It serves scholars through a research library of some 13 million manuscripts and other collections internationally recognized for their enduring scholarly value.
Early members included George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Marshall. The Russian Princess Dashkova, president of the Imperial Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg, was elected in 1789 and was the Society’s first female member. In the nineteenth century, John James Audubon, Robert Fulton, Charles Darwin, Thomas Edison, Maria Mitchell, and Louis Pasteur were among those elected. Hans Bethe, Willa Cather, Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, John Hope Franklin, Robert Frost, George Marshall, Barbara McClintock, and Robert Merton hint at the scientific, humanistic, and public accomplishments of twentieth-century members.
V. Kučera was elected to the membership in the American Philosophical Society in 2023. Election to the Society honors extraordinary accomplishments in mathematics and physical sciences, biological sciences, social and behavioral sciences, arts and humanities, and public affairs. Kučera is only the fourth Czech citizen elected to the Society after Presidents Masaryk (1936), Beneš (1939), and Havel (1995).
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Founded in 1884, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a worldwide technical professional society devoted to advancing electrical engineering, electronics, and computing theory and application. The IEEE serves over 310,000 professionals in approximately 150 countries.
The IEEE Control Systems Society was founded in 1954 as a scientific, engineering, and professional organization dedicated to advancing the theory and practice of systems and control in engineering.
V. Kučera has been a member of IEEE since 1990. He was elevated to the grade of Fellow in 1996 for significant contributions to the theory and design of control systems. Thus, he became the first Fellow IEEE in the Czech Republic/Czechoslovakia. He has been a Life Fellow IEEE since 2017.
V. Kučera was a member of the IEEE Control Systems Society Board of Governors during 1996-1998. He is a founding member of the Czech and Slovak Chapter of the IEEE Control Systems Society (1996). In 1998, he was appointed a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Control Systems Society.
Academy of Engineering of the Czech Republic
The Engineering Academy of the Czech Republic, founded in 1995, is a selective association of engineers from industry, academia, and government agencies. Its purpose is to promote engineering education, research, and development in service of society.
The Academy is a member of the Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences (CAETS), an associate member of the European Council of Applied Sciences and Engineering (Euro-CASE), and the information point of the European Information and Communication Technologies Prize in the Czech Republic.
V. Kučera is a founding member of the Academy. He served as Vice President from 1999 to 2006 and chaired the Information Technologies Section from 2006 to 2010.
Czech Society for Cybernetics and Informatics
The Czech Society for Cybernetics and Informatics was founded in 1966 as the Czechoslovak Society for Cybernetics. Society’s objectives center on the support and promotion of cybernetics, informatics, and related fields, the advance of the professional standing of its members, the provision of services to its members, and the support of conferences, seminars, and other activities. Members can participate in local and international technical and social activities by joining any of the 18 working groups. The society currently has 450 members. The society is a member of the following international organizations: CEPIS, ECCAI, ESSU, IAPR, IASS/AIS, IFAC, and IFIP.
V. Kučera served as a Vice President of the Society. He now represents the Society in the International Federation of Automatic Control.