International Institute of Forecasters

What International Institute of Forecasters does

The International Institute of Forecasters (IIF) is a nonprofit professional membership organization founded in 1982, headquartered in Medford, Massachusetts with approximately 20 staff, and dedicated to advancing the science and practice of forecasting. It serves a global community of forecasting researchers, practitioners, and students through four interlocking pillars: peer-reviewed publishing (the International Journal of Forecasting and the Foresight practitioner journal, with Foresight made open access in July 2025), annual events (the International Symposium on Forecasting, which drew a record ~600 attendees in Beijing in 2025 and is scheduled for Montreal in 2026, and the Foresight Practitioner Conference, alternating between the U.S. and Europe), professional development (a Certificate Program, Forecasting Summer School, Distinguished Lecture Series, and Workshops), and a portfolio of named research and impact awards (IIF-SAS Award, IIF-Tao Hong Award for Energy Forecasting, Forecasting for Social Good grant, Student and Travel Awards, and the $10,000 IIF Forecasting Practice Competition launched in 2025).

The IIF operates a community-led go-to-market with ten specialized communities (Early Career Forecasters at 300+ members, MacroFor, SWEET for water/energy/environment, Tourism & Hospitality, Forecasting for Social Good, Forecasting Practitioner Section, Women in Forecasting, and regional chapters in the UK and South Africa) plus the bimonthly Forecasting Impact Podcast and a 122+ entry blog. Technology is not a product surface; rather, the platform is an editorial, event, and credentialing infrastructure hosted on forecasters.org, with journals distributed via ScienceDirect (IJF) and a dedicated open-access portal (Foresight). Revenue is generated from individual membership fees, conference registration (FPC 2026 ranges $895-$1,245 depending on tier and timing), publication archive access, competition entry fees, and a growing base of corporate and institutional sponsorships (Google, Wayfair, HP, Maersk, Bank of Canada, Federal Reserve Cleveland, Nixtla, Monash, UQAM, Databricks, SAS). Sponsorship and event revenue are increasingly anchored in the enterprise AI/forecasting conversation, with no direct revenue from AI products.

Name

International Institute of Forecasters

Legal name

International Institute of Forecasters

Website

https://forecasters.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

1982

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

The International Institute of Forecasters (IIF) is a 1982-founded nonprofit professional society that publishes the International Journal of Forecasting and Foresight journal, runs the annual ISF and Foresight Practitioner Conference, and serves a global community of forecasting researchers, practitioners, and students through awards, communities, and credentialing programs.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Boston area

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Others

Revenue model

1. Membership Fees: IIF generates revenue through annual membership fees that provide access to publications, events, communities, and professional development resources. The organization offers membership with complimentary 1-year subscription to Foresight journal included with conference registration.
2. Conference Registration Fees: Revenue from registration fees for the Foresight Practitioner Conference (FPC) and International Symposium on Forecasting (ISF). FPC 2027 rates: $995 for members, $1150 for regular (includes complimentary 1-year IIF membership). FPC 2026 rates: $895-1145 for members, $995-1245 regular depending on early bird period.
3. Publication Subscriptions: Revenue from journal subscriptions and archives access. Foresight: The International Journal of Applied Forecasting is now open access for all, but archives require IIF membership.
4. Competition Entry Fees: IIF Forecasting Practice Competition awards $10,000 prize funded by the organization, with finalists required to submit methodology for publication in Foresight journal.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels11 records

Core offering

IIF is a nonprofit professional membership organization that advances the science and practice of forecasting through academic journals (International Journal of Forecasting, Foresight), premier conferences (International Symposium on Forecasting, Foresight Practitioner Conference), educational programs (Summer School, Certificate Program, Workshops), research awards and grants, and a network of specialized forecasting communities connecting academics and practitioners worldwide.

Product overview

The International Institute of Forecasters (IIF) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1982 that serves as the preeminent professional organization for forecasting scholars and practitioners worldwide. The IIF offers a comprehensive portfolio of products and services organized around four pillars: academic publishing (International Journal of Forecasting and Foresight journal), professional events (International Symposium on Forecasting, Foresight Practitioner Conference, Summer School, Workshops, Distinguished Lecture Series), professional development (Certificate Program, Research Awards including IIF-SAS Award and IIF-Tao Hong Award, Student and Travel Awards), and community building (10+ specialized communities including Early Career Forecasters, MacroFor, SWEET, Tourism & Hospitality, Forecasting for Social Good, and regional chapters). The organization also runs an annual Forecasting Practice Competition with $10,000 prize and maintains research resources including the M Competition time series data and IJF Archivist.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• International Journal of Forecasting: Official IIF publication publishing high quality refereed papers covering all aspects of forecasting.
• Foresight: The International Journal of Applied Forecasting
• International Symposium on Forecasting (ISF)
• Foresight Practitioner Conference (FPC)
• Forecasting Impact Podcast

Products and services

• IIF Membership
• International Journal of Forecasting (IJF)
• Foresight: The International Journal of Applied Forecasting
• Forecasting Impact Podcast
• International Symposium on Forecasting (ISF)
• Foresight Practitioner Conference (FPC)
• Forecasting Summer School
• Distinguished Lecture Series
• IIF Certificate Program
• IIF Workshops
• IIF Forecasting Practice Competition
• IIF-SAS Award
• IIF-Tao Hong Award for Energy Forecasting
• Forecasting for Social Good Research Grant
• Travel Awards
• Student Awards
• Women in Forecasting Conference
• Forecasting: Principles and Practice (Python Edition)

Quantifiable outcome

• Forecast error reduction from 40.2% to 2.1% - PATA reduced forecast error over 3 years enabling US$1.4B incremental tourism revenue
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers9 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability6 records

Partnerships

20 partnerships are on record, tiered core, major and minor.

• DatabrickscoreTechnology or Integration · 23 March 2026Tim Januschowski (Director of Engineering & Site Lead Berlin office) is keynote speaker at FPC 2027. Guest editor for IJF special issue on Open-Source Forecasting. Represents leading AI/ML platform in forecasting.
• NixtlamajorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 9 March 2026Sponsor of ISF 2026 (46th International Symposium on Forecasting in Montreal). Nixtla is a leading open-source forecasting software developer.
• CIRANOmajorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 9 March 2026Sponsor of ISF 2026. CIRANO is a research center in Quebec focused on economic and public policy research.
• Bank of CanadamajorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 9 March 2026Sponsor of ISF 2026, demonstrating partnership with central bank involved in macroeconomic forecasting research.
• Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)majorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 9 March 2026Host venue for ISF 2026 and Forecasting Summer School 2026 (9th edition on Forecasting Risks). Academic partnership with local university.
• Monash UniversitymajorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 9 March 2026Sponsor of ISF 2026. Monash is a key academic partner with forecasting research programs and guest editors for IJF special issues.
• ValtitudecoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 9 March 2026Sponsor of ISF 2026. Valtitude (Demand Planning Net) is a forecasting consulting firm, with Mark Chockalingam as President and Founder presenting at ISF 2026.
• Lancaster Centre for Marketing Analytics and ForecastingmajorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 9 March 2026Sponsor of ISF 2026. Lancaster University has significant forecasting research presence including Anna Sroginis as Assistant Professor.
• Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Center for Inflation ResearchmajorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 9 March 2026Sponsor of ISF 2026. Federal Reserve research center focused on inflation forecasting research.
• TimberlakecoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 9 March 2026Sponsor of ISF 2026. Timberlake provides econometrics training and software, offering summer schools including at Cambridge.
• Hong Kong Polytechnic UniversitycoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 9 March 2026Research partner with Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) for Asia Pacific Visitor Forecasts. Developed quarterly travel demand forecasting model for 39 destinations.
• Society for Nonlinear Dynamics and Econometrics (SNDE)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 9 March 2026Co-host of annual workshop for young researchers. Jointly organized second workshop in November 2025 with IIF.
• PrediconsultminorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 9 March 2026Sponsor of ISF 2026. Forecasting consulting practice.
• Tourisme MontréalminorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 9 March 2026Sponsor of ISF 2026. Local tourism organization supporting conference in Montreal.
• GooglecoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 5 March 2026Sponsor of Foresight Practitioner Conference 2026/2027. Google Cloud's Applied AI Engineering team participates with speakers like Skander Hannachi (Technical Solutions Manager) and Chris Fry (Director of Data Science).
• Drexel UniversitycoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 5 March 2026Sponsor of Foresight Practitioner Conference. Matthew Schneider (Conference Director) is from Drexel University. Simon Spavound is former Head of Data Science at PEAK AI.
• WayfaircoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 2 March 2026Sponsor of FPC 2025 and 2026. Winner of 2025 IIF Forecasting Practice Competition with $10,000 prize for demand forecasting impact.
• HPcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 2 March 2026Sponsor of FPC 2025 and 2026. Finalist in 2025 IIF Forecasting Practice Competition.
• MaerskcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 2 March 2026Sponsor of FPC 2025 and 2026. Marco Zugno (Lead Data Scientist) presents on forecasting for container shipping operations.
• VIVES University of Applied SciencescoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 2 March 2026Host venue for FPC 2026 in Bruges, Belgium. Yves Sagaert (Local Chair/Program Chair) is affiliated with VIVES.

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Regional players

• Forecasting & Analytics Society of Singapore (FASTS): A regional forecasting and analytics professional community in Asia-Pacific that organizes events and knowledge-sharing for practitioners — comparable to IIF's regional chapters and similar in mission but smaller in geographic footprint.
• Royal Statistical Society (RSS): The UK's chartered professional body for statisticians, hosting events, publications, and special interest groups that include time series and forecasting sections — comparable in mission but primarily serving a UK/European constituency similar to IIF's UK Chapter.

Broad incumbents

• IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers): The world's largest technical professional organization, running hundreds of conferences and journals that intersect with forecasting through computational intelligence, signal processing, and AI/ML societies — a much broader incumbent that overlaps a subset of IIF's AI-forecasting members.
• ACM (Association for Computing Machinery): A major global computing professional society with conferences (KDD, SIGMOD), journals, and special interest groups that overlap IIF's machine-learning-for-forecasting practitioner and researcher community at a broader computing level.
• American Statistical Association (ASA): The largest U.S. professional society for statisticians, publishing the Journal of the American Statistical Association and running Joint Statistical Meetings. ASA overlaps IIF's academic and practitioner forecasting audience at the broader statistical-discipline level.
• Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM): An international professional society for applied mathematics, computational science, and data science, running conferences and journals (e.g., SIAM Journal on Forecasting, time-series-relevant publications) that overlap IIF's quantitative-research audience.

Direct peers

• Institute of Business Forecasting & Planning (IBF): A practitioner-focused professional association dedicated specifically to demand planning, forecasting, and supply chain planning — running the IBF Annual Conference, certification programs, and a forecasting-focused community that directly competes for IIF's enterprise-practitioner audience.
• INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences): The premier international professional society for operations research and analytics, running major conferences, peer-reviewed journals (e.g., Management Science), practitioner communities, and section-based engagement — closely mirroring IIF's professional-association model in an adjacent analytics discipline.

Emerging players

• International Association for Statistical Computing (IASC): A section of the International Statistical Institute focused on statistical computing and computational statistics, with conferences and working groups that intersect IIF's M-competition and time-series data resources.
• Decision Sciences Institute (DSI): An international professional association advancing decision sciences, analytics, and business research, with an annual conference and the Decision Sciences Journal. DSI overlaps with IIF in the academic decision-making and forecasting intersection.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/IIForecasters
• YouTubeyoutube.com/channel/UCOHe-YNq10A6FfXqWYIyOow
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/international-institute-of-forecasters
• Instagraminstagram.com/iiforecasters

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about International Institute of Forecasters