SPS appears to be thriving, with membership and journal/conference submission numbers showing consistent growth. However, it is becoming clear that some of our critical structures and processes are no longer scalable or sustainable, and in some cases, are even malfunctioning. Revising or redesigning these will be essential and should be prioritized to support healthy further growth. This should be done with emphasis on service and quality, rather than profit and quantity, while demonstrating appreciation and respect for volunteers.
Major challenges are as follows:
Although conferences are often viewed as the fastest route for publishing recent results, it is important to recognize that our journals in fact offer comparable submission-to-publication timelines. Journals and conferences should therefore be jointly managed as one ecosystem, to fully exploit journal-conference synergies, increase overall efficiency and optimally (re)use review resources, and to allow strategic positioning against the newer (but larger) ML/AI conferences by capitalizing on the strong reputation of our journals.
To ensure consistency across journal and conference publication policies, closer collaboration between the Publications Board and Conferences Board is needed. To guarantee continuity and correctness in policy implementation, structural assistance should be provided to conference organizing committees.
Open Access publication, as advocated by our funding agencies, should be kept affordable and should be supported and promoted more heavily. For conferences, hybrid/virtual formats should be further developed for those not able to travel (e.g., for financial reasons) or not willing to travel (e.g., for ecological reasons).
Quality control through peer review is essential to the scientific method and, therefore, to one of our most important member services, i.e. the dissemination of peer-reviewed scientific material. However, with growing journal/conference submission numbers, our current peer-review process does not appear to scale well. Recruiting qualified reviewers, especially in journals, has become more problematic than ever, leading to missed timeliness targets, burnout among editors, and dissatisfaction among authors.
In addition to the recent adjustments to the workflow and editorial board structure in the largest SPS journals, to improve timeliness and strengthen quality control, it will be necessary to establish a framework to systematically enforce review commitments and monitor peer review performance, to safeguard review quality and editorial productivity. This would also help reduce the review load for the Technical Committees, enabling them to achieve a better balance with their other missions.
Full support will be given to new initiatives aimed at enhancing member services, e.g., the educational program to offer curated educational content, and the establishment of the Industry Board to better serve our industry members.
Simultaneously, many more members should be encouraged to take on active volunteer roles, e.g., as reviewers, editors, Technical Committee members, mentors. More opportunities should be provided for early-career volunteers and training activities should be expanded significantly. To engage more members into sustained volunteer service, volunteer positions should require realistically budgeted time commitments and be sufficiently supported by staff.
IEEE ethical standards must be strictly enforced. In a globalized community with significant cultural differences, more ethics education should be provided, while strong ethical leadership should foster a culture of integrity and transparency.
Journals and conferences are increasingly dealing with author/reviewer misconduct cases (ChatGPT!), where individual investigations are excessively time-consuming and consistency across cases is not guaranteed. To ensure efficiency and consistency, and offload editorial boards and conference committees, a society-level ethics committee should be established as a gateway to IEEE-level support.
In the present structure, strategic decisions are mostly made by individual Vice Presidents and their respective Boards, i.e. in a bottom-up manner and with only limited consultation within the ExCom or BoG. To enhance consistency across Boards and continuity between Vice President tenures, more opportunities should be created for strategic discussions within the ExCom, with a stronger role for the Long-Range Planning and Implementation Committee, chaired by the President-Elect.
Strategic decisions should also be communicated transparently to the membership, e.g., through regular Signal Processing Magazine items contributed by the Officers.
SPS is often perceived as a non-transparent business offering overly expensive services. In reality, SPS revenue is primarily publication revenue (from journal and conference publications), hence many SPS activities are primarily financed from publication revenue. However, this relies on a paywall model, which is increasingly at risk with the proliferation of free public repositories, and in all likelihood will be significantly reduced by the transition to Open Access (a persistent misconception is that Open Access publication is financially more profitable than traditional Toll Access publication, but in fact it is the other way around). Therefore, a more transparent and sustainable financial model should be adopted, proceeding from a critical analysis of our current cost structure and expenses, and extending well beyond publication activities.
Addressing these (and other) challenges will require creativity and cooperation among leadership and volunteers, in an open culture of debate, collegiality, diversity and inclusion. I firmly believe that my recent involvement in SPS has given me the experience and understanding to lead this endeavor.
I served as SPS Vice President-Publications (2021-2023) and as member-at-large of the SPS Board of Governors (2020). As SPS Vice President-Publications I have sought to move beyond business as usual and drive meaningful, lasting change. Together with the Publications Board, I reorganized the workflow and editorial board structure in the largest SPS journals to improve timeliness and strengthen quality control, modified and automated the nomination/self-nomination process for editorial board members, adjusted policy to allow longer SAE/AE terms wherever relevant, initiated the OJSP short paper submission track for ICASSP/ICIP with editorial board sharing across journals, streamlined requirements for journal paper presentations in conferences, initiated paper cascading ideas, and revised several policies and procedures to improve overall efficiency.
I served as President of EURASIP (European Association for Signal Processing) for four years (first term 2007-2008, second term 2011-2012). I served on the EURASIP Board of Directors for sixteen years (1999-2014), including terms as Treasurer/Secretary and as Director of Publications. I coordinated the formal registration of EURASIP as a non-profit organization (under Belgian law) and drafted its inaugural Bylaws (2006). As Director of Publications (2005-2006), I drove the transition of selected EURASIP journals to Open Access and oversaw the launch of new Open Access journals.
For eight years (first term 2013-2017, second term 2017-2021), I was Head of Division of STADIUS Center for Dynamical Systems, Signal Processing, and Data Analytics, a KU Leuven research division with 10+ professors and over 150 PhD and postdoctoral researchers.
I have been a Full Professor at KU Leuven, Belgium, since 2004. I obtained a PhD degree from KU Leuven in 1990, and have been a PhD and postdoctoral visiting researcher at the University of Stanford, University of Minnesota, and Delft University of Technology, and a visiting professor at ALaRI, University of Lugano. I am a Fellow of the IEEE (2007), Fellow of EURASIP (2018), recipient of the EURASIP Meritorious Service Award (2020) and the IEEE SPS Claude Shannon-Harry Nyquist Technical Achievement Award (2024), and co-recipient of the EU/CELTIC Excellence Award (for EU/CELTIC Project ‘BANITS’, 2008), as well as 10 journal/conference best paper awards.
For over 25 years I headed a team of 15+ PhD and postdoctoral researchers in the field of numerical algorithms and signal processing for digital communications, digital audio- and speech processing. I have supervised/co-supervised 60 defended PhD-theses, authored/co-authored 300+ journal papers (of which 175+ in IEEE journals) and 400+ international conference papers (of which 150+ in IEEE conferences).
Google Scholar Link
MathGenealogy Link
My research has consistently had a strong industry focus, e.g., with over twenty years of ongoing cooperation in the area of digital subscriber lines (DSL) with Nokia Bell Labs (formerly Alcatel-Bell/Alcatel-Lucent) and in the area of hearing instruments and cochlear implants with Cochlear Ltd, which has resulted in 10+ patents/patent applications as well as several (DSL) standardization contributions.
I am a co-founder of conneXounds, a company developing BYOD audio technology for hybrid meeting environments.
Nokia Bell Labs Link
conneXounds Link
My editorial leadership roles include Editor-in-Chief for the EURASIP Journal on Advances in Signal Processing (2003-2005) and area editor for ‘Feature Articles’ for the IEEE Signal Processing Magazine (2012-2014). I was a member of the editorial board of the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems-II (2002-2003), EURASIP Journal on Advances in Signal Processing (2001-2003), IEEE Signal Processing Magazine (2003-2005), EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking (2003-2011), and Elsevier Signal Processing (2007-2011).
I held the role of Chair of the EURASIP Fellow Selection Committee (2018-2021) and Chair of the SPS Benelux Chapter (1998-2002). I was a member of the SPS Awards Board (2008-2010), the SPS Fellow Reference Committee (2014-2016), the SPS Nominations and Appointments Committee (2024), and the SPS Technical Committee on Signal Processing for Communications (first term 2005-2007, second term 2008-2010). I was a member of the ICASSP-2008 Organizing Committee, the EUSIPCO-2010 Organizing Committee (Tutorials Chair), and the EUSIPCO-2015 Organizing Committee (Awards Chair).
In the most difficult discussions leading up to these out-of-cycle elections, I have consistently upheld principles and ethical standards.
I am committed to ensuring that all SPS members are treated fairly and equitably, have equal opportunities to contribute and thrive, and that volunteers are respected and valued for their invested time and effort.
I am committed to demonstrating professionalism and integrity, upholding the highest standards of our profession, and fostering trust and accountability to benefit our members and the wider community.