Historically, the IEEE VIS community was governed by two separate committees: the Visualization Steering Committee (VSC), which provided longer-term strategic oversight and governance, and the Visualization Executive Committee (VEC), which focused on operational coordination and conference planning responsibilities. Beginning in 2026, this structure was streamlined through the merger of the two committees into a single governance body, which will continue to operate under the name VSC. This change emerged from discussions and recommendations developed through the reVISe 1.1 initiative, which was established to evaluate the effectiveness of VIS governance, conference operations, and community processes following earlier restructuring efforts. The proposed governance changes emphasized reducing fragmentation across decision-making bodies, improving coordination between strategic and operational functions, and strengthening continuity and accountability across conference leadership. The resulting unified structure is intended to simplify decision-making, improve communication, and provide clearer continuity across conference leadership and organizational processes.
We feel that having decisions handled by a single committee will help us to adhere to our core values, especially: transparency, effective communication, and accountability. The simplified committee structure should also enable the Visualisation conference to evolve with more agility. That is, to more rapidly respond to new challenges and opportunities and to stay relevant in the rapidly changing ecosystem of big data, opaque AI, and complex scientific, societal and industrial systems for which visualisation research seeks to support human understanding.
Reflecting this new structure is a new VSC Mission Statement. We welcome feedback from the community and look forward to continuing to work together to support academically rigorous and engaging IEEE VIS conferences that serve the evolving needs of the global visualization research community.