Conference Reports NOVEMBER 2021 | IEEE COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE MAGAZINE 5 S ponsored by IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (CIS), the IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (IEEE CEC) is the flag- ship event in CIS that focuses on the entirety of the Evolutionary Computa- tion (EC) field. The conference pro- motes all aspects of theory, algorithm design and applications of EC and related research areas that focus on mimicking nature to solve problems. A broad range of topics related to evolutionary computation makes IEEE CEC an excellent forum for bringing together researchers and practitioners from all over the world to present and discuss their research findings and future prospects of the field of evolu- tionary computation. In 2021, IEEE CEC was organized in Kraków, Poland. However, due to COVID-19 restrictions, it was held fully virtually between June 28th and July 1st 2021. IEEE CEC 2021 has attracted 542 papers submitted by 1460 authors from 60+ different countries. Among the submissions, a large number of papers demonstrated refreshing theories and concepts, supported by strong, compel- ling analytical and empirical analyses. Each paper received a minimum of 2 reviews, with an average of 3.4 reviews, made by 575 reviewers. Under the guid- ance of the Program Co-Chairs, Con- flict of Interest Chair and Technical Co-Chairs, and the help of special ses- sion organizers, 324 papers from 910 authors were finally accepted and virtu- ally presented. Accepted papers represent a diverse view of the latest advances in the area and give a preview of our further com- mitment to drawing inspiration from nature for solving challenging real prob- lems. The organizing committee is truly humbled by this impressive display of support for the congress despite the global pandemic situation. On the first day of the conference, 28th June, there were 24 tutorials and two workshops offering a great op- portunity to disseminate in-depth information on specific areas of evolu- tionary computation. The tutorials and workshops covered a diverse range of topics from algorithmic design of multi-/many-objective optimiza- tion, large-scale optimization, hyper- heuristics, evolutionary machine learning, evolutionary multitasking, computer vision, games, to theory and real-world applications. In order to maximize the educational and research training bene- fits from these tutorials, all tutorials were made available free-of-charge to all attendees. IEEE CEC 2021 featured six plenary lectures given by world-leading scholars in the field of evolutionary computation: ❏ When Everything Else Fails, Try Co- evolution by Prof. Xin Yao ❏ Towards robust and secure robot swarms by Prof. Marco Dorigo ❏ AI-based business applications and the EC research by Prof. Zbigniew Michalewicz ❏ Lessons Learned after 25 Years Designing Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithms by Prof. Carlos Artemio Coello Coello ❏ Evolutionary Multiobjective Optimiza- tion with Humans in the Loop by Prof. Roman Slowin ´ski ❏ Neuroevolution: A Synergy of Evolution and Learning by Prof. Risto Miikku- lainen All plenary lectures presented the audience with cutting-edge research and technologies in the field of evolu- tionary computation. Four of them were given on the occasion of receiving Conference Report on 2021 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (IEEE CEC 2021) Jacek Man ´dziuk Warsaw University of Technology, POLAND Hussein Abbass University of New South Wales, AUSTRALIA Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MCI.2021.3108355 Date of current version: 13 October 2021 FIGURE 1 General Co-Chair Jacek Man ´dziuk delivering the opening speech at IEEE CEC 2021.