The IFIP Networking event series forms the flagship conference from IFIP TC6 – the Technical Committee on Communication Systems. It started in 2000 as a joint event of combining the Broadband Communications, Performance of Communication Networks, and High Performance Networking conferences, which date back partially to 1981. The main objectives of IFIP Networking are to bring together members of the networking community from both academia and industry, to discuss recent advances in the broad and quickly-evolving fields of computer and communication networks, and to highlight key issues, identify trends, and develop visions for the networking domain overall.

As such the past year’s event IFIP Networking 2018 in Zürich, Switzerland in May 2018 with the General Chair of Burkhard Stiller was run as a two parallel tracks event with three keynotes from industrial and academic speakers, including the topics of “Blockchain for Cyber Physical Systems”, “Flexibility Matters: On the Design and Evaluation of Softwarized Networks”, and “Artificial Intelligence in Network Operations and Management”, one panel on “Security and Privacy in the Internet of Things”, 14 full paper sessions, 2 short paper sessions, and a poster session. 

Unfortunately, during early 2019 one of the three 2018 TPC Co-chairs, namely James P.G. Sterbenz, passed away unexpectedly. The community will remember his dedication, his pin-pointing way of addressing technical problems – among other events especially in Zürich, while organizing and running the panel just named above –, and his support and discussion with colleagues on their various research and career paths. 

During the IFIP Networking 2019 event in Warsaw, Poland in May 2019 with the General Chair Krzysztof Szczypiorski, James’ field of research was memorialized specifically via a small exhibition of papers overviewing his research, combined with a poster, and an obituary within the program’s booklet. 

The IFIP Networking 2019 in Warsaw event did see 3 keynotes from academia on “New Research Directions in Routing: Beyond Sequence Numbering, Routing Modalities, and Destination-Based Routing Table”, “Toward Self-* Networks”, and “User-centric Privacy and Security in the Networked World” complemented with a little smaller program within one track and with 7 full paper sessions and a poster session. 

The look into the future tells that IFIP Networking 2020 is planned for in Paris, France in June 2020, for which all details of the Call-for-Papers, the committees, and venue information are linked from the IFIP Networking Series home page https://networking.ifip.org/. Consider the submission of a paper by end of December 2019! 

Within this context it is important to mention that IFIP Networking is guided by a respective Steering Committee, which was chaired in the past by Jordi Domingo-Pascual. Since his term will end this Summer 2019, many thanks are expressed to him from TC6 for guiding, forming, selecting, and deciding reliably on various major and minor steps in the past IFIP Networking series – it was wonderful to see Jordi being successful and well respected by all the past IFIP Networking Organizing Committees. As of Fall 2019 Andrea Passarella will take over the role of the Steering Committee chair. Thus, TC6 extends a warm welcome to Andrea – well known already within TC6 and beyond – and wishes all the best for his future endeavors within the IFIP Networking series and all people involved therein. 

Burkhard Stiller
IFIP TC6 Chair