During the 2nd IJCPR (Int. Joint Conf. on Pattern Recognition), the Standing Committee approved the proposal of establishing a permanent international professional organization for pattern recognition. After one year of preparation, IAPR was formally founded during the 3rd IJCPR in Coronado, USA (1976). The IAPR Constitution was approved by the Standing Committee and ExCo officers were elected. Three committees (Publication, Conference and Membership) were organized. A special committee drafted the Bylaws which were approved by the Standing Committee in early 1977. The 4th IJCPR was the first IAPR sponsored conference.

		Location	General Chair
1973	1st IJCPR	Washington D.C., USA	K.S. Fu
1974	2nd IJCPR	Copenhagen, Denmark	C.J.D.M. Verhagen
1976	3rd IJCPR	Coronado, USA	A. Rosenfeld
1978	4th IJCPR	Kyoto, Japan	M. Nagao
1980	5th ICPR	Miami, USA	T. Pavlidis
1982	6th ICPR	Munich, Germany	H. Marko
1984	7th ICPR	Montreal, Canada	M.D. Levine
1986	8th ICPR	Paris, France	J.-C. Simon
1988	9th ICPR	Rome, Italy	S. Levialdi
1990	10th ICPR	Atlantic City, USA	H. Freeman
1992	11th ICPR	The Hague, The Netherlands	E.S. Gelsems & E. Backer
1994	12th ICPR	Jerusalem, Israel	S. Peleg & S. Ullman
1996	13th ICPR	Vienna, Austria	W.G. Kropatsch
1998	14th ICPR	Brisbane, Australia	T. Caelli & A. Maeder
2000	15th ICPR	Barcelona, Spain	A. Sanfeliu & J.J. Villanueva
2002	16th ICPR	Quebec City Canada	C.Y. Suen
2004	17th ICPR	Cambridge, UK	J. Kittler

IAPR Presidents

1976-1978	King Sun Fu
1978-1980	Herbert Freeman
1980-1982	Azriel Rosenfeld
1982-1984	Jean Claude Simon
1984-1986	Toshiyuki Sakai
1986-1988	Pierre A. Devijver
1988-1990	Martin D. Levine
1990-1992	Michael J.B. Duff
1992-1994	J.K. Aggarwal
1994-1996	Josef Kittler
1996-1998	Robert M. Haralick
1998-Mar 2000	Edzard Gelsema
Mar-Sept 2000	Horst Bunke
2000-2002	Gabriella Sanniti di Baja
2002-2004	Rangachar Kasturi