The 17th World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control was held in Seoul, Korea during July 6 to11. Prof. Guo Lei  was elected as an IFAC Council Member for the triennium 2008-2011. He also served as the Chair of IFAC Congress Young Author Prize Selection Committee.

Eight professors and nine graduates from the Key Laboratory of Systems and Control attended the congress. Prof. Cheng Daizhan  was elected as a member of the IFAC Policy Committee and he also received the IFAC Fellow Certificate during the congress. The congress was attended by near 3,000 scholars from 69 countries, which was regarded as the largest congress in IFAC history. China headed the list in this congress on the number of accepted papers counted on corresponding authors.

 The IFAC is a multi-national federation with 48 national members. The aims of the organization are to promote the science and technology of automatic control in all non-technical and technical systems. The IFAC world congress takes place every three years covering a wide range of control sciences and engineering. The next congress will be held in Milan, Italy in August, 2011.