United Kingdom Automatic Control Council

Latest news

Data-Based Systems and Control Theory Course at EECI

A new course within the program of the EECI International Graduate School on Control, titled Data-Based Systems and

Control Theory has been announced.

Location: Hamburg University of Technology, Germany

Dates: 4-8 May, 2026

Lecturers: Kanat Camlibel, Paolo Rapisarda and Henk van Waarde

The course aims at providing a comprehensive introduction to the principles and methods of data-driven control. It is suitable for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers interested in the theoretical foundations and emerging challenges in data-based analysis and control design. The course program includes both lectures and interactive tutorial sessions.

Further details can be found here.

Save the Date – Control Conference 2026

The Automatic Control Engineering Network (ACE) & UKACC Control Conference 2026 will take place on 23–25 June 2026, bringing together the UK control community for three days of discussion, exchange, and engagement across academia, industry, and practice. Hosted at Newcastle University’s Frederick Douglass Centre, offering modern facilities in the heart of a vibrant and accessible city.

A formal Call for Abstracts will be released in late January 2026, including full submission guidance and templates.

13 January 2026

Call for Proposals for EUCA Community Grants - 2026

The European Union Control Association (EUCA) invites proposals for its Community Grants Program (2026), supporting initiatives that benefit the European control community at large. Funding is available for activities such as educational materials, workshops, lecture series, and other broadly accessible initiatives.

Extended application deadline: 31 January 2026

Full details and application guidelines can be found here.

13 January 2026

UKACC is now on LinkedIn!

UKACC is now on LinkedIn and can be found here. We'll be posting there rather than Twitter/X. Please share and follow us!

31 May 2025

Vacancy: Lecturer in Mechatronics & Control

A Lecturer or Senior Lecturer position in Mechatronics and Control in the Wolfson School at the Loughborough University has become available.

Details can be found here. 

24 February 2025

UK Automatic Control Engineering (ACE) event for ECR

The Automatic Control Engineering (ACE) Network focuses on critical areas of control engineering such as AI & Data, Future Mobility, Clean Growth, and Ageing Society. This is a new network dedicated to uniting researchers and fostering collaboration. The Early Career Research (ECR) group of the network has the particular mission of supporting early career research (PhD, Postdocs, new PI). To allow young researchers to get to know each other, we are organizing four short webinars:

29 Jan: Control in Human Machine Intelligence

7 Feb: Control for Smart and Sustainable Mobility

12 Feb: Data and AI meet Control

26 Feb: Control for Clean energy

Please see the links above for futher details. ECRs are strongly encouraged to attend. This is an initial step to build the UK community, allowing people to get an idea of what is going on. These will be followed up by further activities to connect and support early-career researchers.

22 January 2025

UKACC PhD Showcase Winners 2024

Congratulations to Chengwei Xia of Imperial College London who won the best presentation prize at the UKACC annual PhD Showcase for their presentation “Active flow control of drag reduction using Data-enabled Predictive Control”. Congratulations also to Raphael Schmetterling of the University of Cambridge and Zheyu Ziang of Loughborough University who were joint runners-up. 

The event took place at the Royal Institution on 4 July 2024. More details can be found here.

6 August 2024

A Message from the Outgoing Chair

I would like to express my sincere thanks for all your support during the last three years in my role as Chair of the UKACC. It was a challenge to build up the activities post Covid and it was great to re-initiate the Distinguished Lecture series that was held earlier this month. Going forward, the collaboration with the EPSRC funded Control Network ACE presents a new phase. My tenure has now ended and I am pleased to hand over the Chairship to Professor Will Heath. I am sure you will all welcome him and work to the benefit of UKACC. Thank you again. 

Visakan Kadirkamanathan

20 July 2024

Obituary: Professor Roger Goodall

1 September 2022

Professor Roger Goodall's obituary can be found here.

Upcoming events

Rosenbrock Lecture Series 2026

The Control Systems and Robotics group at the University of Manchester is organising the 2nd Rosenbrock Lecture Series to celebrate ground-breaking research accomplishments in the fields of Control Engineering and Robotics. Four distinguished world-leading experts in Control Engineering and Robotics will give the Keynote Lectures. More details can be found here.

30 November 2025

2025 UKACC PhD Showcase & IMechE Awards Night & Annual Lecture 

The 2025 UKACC PhD Showcase will take place at the prestigious Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 1 Birdcage Walk in London on 22 October 2025. The PhD Showcase has the aim of bringing postgraduate researchers and the control community together and celebrating the work taking place by PhD students. 

This year you are invited to stay and join us for the IMechE Awards Night and Annual Lecture and drinks reception, at 1 Birdcage Walk, London. The lecture “Intuitive Control Design for Robotics Through Passivity and Optimization” will be given by Professor Fulvio Forni of the University of Cambridge.

Further details can be found here.

2024 UKACC PhD Showcase & InstMC Awards Night & Annual Distinguished Lecture 

The 2024 UKACC PhD Showcase will take place at the prestigious Royal Institution in London on 4 July 2024. The PhD Showcase has the aim of bringing postgraduate researchers and the control community together and celebrating the work taking place by PhD students. All PhD students working in any area of control are invited to submit a four-minute presentation on their research (see separate guidance document for details on how to apply). 

This year you are invited to stay and join us for the InstMC Awards Night and UKACC Annual Distinguished Lecture, at the Royal Institution, London. The distinguished lecture “Spiking Intelligence: Towards Reconciling Physics and Algorithmics?” will be given by Professor Rodolphe Sepulchre.

Further details can be found here.

The Rosenbrock Lecture at the University of Manchester

SAVE THE DATE 21 March 2024 - The Control and Robotics group at the University of Manchester is launching the Rosenbrock Lecture Series to celebrate ground-breaking research accomplishments in the fields of Control Engineering and Robotics. Four distinguished world-leading experts in Control Engineering and Robotics will give the inaugural Keynote Lectures. 

The event is sponsored by Quanser Inc. who will give the inaugural Industrial Lecture. Registration is free via this link.

The UKACC PhD Showcase and Roger Goodall Memorial

The UKACC PhD Showcase has the aim of bringing postgraduate researchers and the control community together and celebrating the work taking place by PhD students. The 2023 PhD Showcase will be a tribute to Professor Roger Goodall, who sadly passed away in 2022 and will be held at Loughborough University on the afternoon of 20th October 2023.

Further details can be found here.

CONTROL 2024 - Co-sponsored by IFACx

The 14th UKACC International Conference on Control co-sponsored by IFACx  will be held from 10-12 April 2024 in Winchester, UK.

Further details can be found here.

Learning for Decision and Control (L4DC) Conference 2024

The 6th Annual Learning for Dynamics and Control Conference will be held at the University of Oxford on the 15th to 17th July 2024.

The call for papers is now open.

More details can be found here.

IEEE CCTA 2024

The 8th IEEE Conference on Control Technology and Applications (CCTA) 2024 supported by UKACC will take place on 21 - 23 August 2024 at Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom. 

See website for further details.