A Survey of Practitioners of Evolutionary Computation

Abstract

To assist in understanding trends in the field of Evolutionary Computation (EC) and in helping graduates find jobs in EC, we conducted a survey from March 2005 to February 2006 on members of the EC community. The analysis reveals various technology transfer strategies and activities took place during the past 50 years: parallel exploration of multiple application areas; a combination of exploitation and exploration approaches to develop EC applications; and the healthy migration of EC practitioners between different parts of the globe. We believe these emerged and self-organized phenomena contribute to the growth of the field. While there are still challenges in deploying evolutionary computation to industry in a grand scale, the EC community demonstrates the adaptability and resilience necessary to achieve that goal.