The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) was founded in 1963 in the USA by fusing of two other institutes: Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) and Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE). At moment, the IEEE is the largest engineering organization in the world. It is a technical-scientific association for professionals and it is responsible for editing and publishing journals, establishing networking, organizing conferences, setting standards. Indeed, it produces 30% of the world literature in the fields of engineering. It is spread across 160 countries, has more than 420000 members and more than 1200 conferences a year.

As the IEEE wanted to cover its mission to the entire globe, a well-organized structure was required to allow the existence of divisions. The IEEE Member and Geographic Activities Board (MGA Board) is responsible to the IEEE Board of Directors, has oversight of IEEE geographic organizational units, and is responsible for IEEE membership and member development.

The world is divided into ten IEEE Regions. The Region territories are not necessarily confined to a state or country boundaries. For instance, the USA has 6 regions but the region 8, of which Portugal belongs, includes Africa, Europe and Middle East. The regions are in turn divided into geographical sections. Portugal constitutes a single section.

Within the sections, there are chapters that promote the interests of a given field of engineering; student branches that are representations of students in universities; affinity groups that are non-technical representations that tries to assert IEEE’s values such as gender equality (WIE), the valuation of the new engineers (young professionals) or the gratification of notable members (life members); councils are technical groups working on broad interface fields of chapters. At last, in the student representation there may also be affinity groups and/or chapters.

In summary, the IEEE EMBS Chapter Portugal belongs to the section of Portugal which in turn belongs to Region 8, which on the other hand belongs to the global IEEE community. The IEEE EMBS Chapter Portugal holds 4 student branch chapters student branch chapters scattered throughout the country at “Instituto Superior Técnico” (Lisbon), “Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa” (Lisbon), University of Porto and University of Coimbra.