Despite the international nature of its position and role, ICMI from time to time lends its name to a variety of regional conferences on mathematics education, primarily in less affluent parts of the world. Launched in the mid-seventies, the series of ICMI Regional Conferences then had as an explicit aim to facilitate wider discussion of mathematical education issues outside those areas of Europe and America where international meetings on the subject had mainly been held before. A number of Regional Conferences have taken place over the years, the aim being to foster reflection, action and co-operation among mathematicians, mathematics educators and teachers in as many regions of the world as possible. These meetings are supported morally by ICMI, and sometimes with a modest financial contribution as well.
In order to be granted the status of an ICMI Regional Conference, some criteria have to be met by the organizing committee.
There are four ICMI Regional Conferences occurring on a regular basis:
The Africa Regional Congress of ICMI on Mathematical Education was launched in 2005 and aims at offering a forum for mathematics educators throughout Africa.
The Conferencia interamericana de educación matemática — Inter-American Conference on Mathematical Education has been organized, since the early 1960s, by the Comité Interamericano de Educación Matemática - Inter-American Committee on Mathematical Education to promote discussion amongst the countries of the Americas. It is held every four years in between ICME conferences.
The Congresso Iberoamericano de Educação Matemática / Iberoamerican Congress of Mathematics Education is held in different countries, every four years since 1990. CIBEM offers the possibility of showing and disseminating the different activities and initiatives carried out in different Latin American countries through meetings, communications, workshops, courses, discussion areas, posters and any other initiative considered appropriate by the organization. A special effort to try to offer special attention to Mathematics Education at all educational levels (from Early Childhood Education to University), as well as in its different modalities (adults, attention to diversity, multiculturalism, etc.).
EARCOME is the name given to the ICMI-East Asia Regional Conferences in Mathematics Education.
The EARCOME series grew out of earlier conferences in the region. The South East Asia Conferences on Mathematics Education (SEACME) series began in 1978 in Manila, and thereafter conferences were held at three-year intervals at Kuala Lumpur (1981), Haad Yai (1984), Singapore (1987), Brunei (1990), Surabaya (1993), Hanoi (1996), and Manila again in 1999. In addition there have been two ICMI-China Regional Conferences on Mathematics Education, in Beijing (1991) and Shanghai (1994). Since EARCOME-3 hosted again in 2005 in Shanghai the series was renamed EARCOME.
Launched by the French Sub-Commission of ICMI on the occasion of the World Mathematical Year 2000, the series of Espace Mathématique Francophone conferences is built on a notion of "region" defined in linguistic rather than geographical terms, French being a common language among participants.
All information about the EMF, including all proceedings (with an internal browser), the composition of the executive Bureau and the status can be found on emf.unige.ch where you can also subscribe to the list of diffusion. The seventh EMF (EMF-2018) will be held in Paris (France) in October 2018.
Other ICMI Regional Conferences occur on a more ad hoc basis, such as the Escuela Latinoamericana de Historia y Epistemología de las Matemáticas - Latin-American School on History and Epistemology of Mathematics, ELHEM (Cali, Colombia, November 2002), or the All-Russian Conference on Mathematical Education (Dubna, Russia, September 2000)
In 2015 the Espaço Matemático em Língua Portuguesa was created CiEMeLP. The conference does not yet occur on a regular basis.
The first conference of the "Conferência Internacional do Espaço Matemático em Língua Portuguesa" took place in Coimbra, Portugal, 28 - 31 October 2015. http://www.mat.uc.pt/~emelp/