The DGS organizes: 

• approx. 20 conferences, colloquia, working sessions, courses or series of lectures by different speakers each year. Topics include the problem of signs in philosophy, logic and epistemology, mathematics and artificial intelligence, computer science, ecology, biology, medicine, psychology, psychiatry and psychotherapy, sociology, economics, media science, linguistics, cultural anthropology, history, law, religion, literature, music, art, architecture, design, film, education, sign language, the working world and the history of semiotics 

 
• an annual academy conference bringing together scholars and others in the working world to analyze semiotic problems in everyday life. Past topics have been:

1991 - Culture and nature 
1992 - Signs of time 
1993 - Myth, the market and public relations 
1994 - People in the city 
1995 - Traffic and communication 
1996 - Logistics ... change and responsibility 
1997 - Business - education - management 
 
• an international congress every three years. Past topics have been:

1975 - Semiotics research in individual academic subjects (Berlin) 
1978 - Sign constitution (Regensburg) 
1981 - Signs and reality (Hamburg) 
1984 - Signs in change (Munich) 
1987 - Creativity (Essen) 
1990 - Sign (theory) applied (Passau) 
1993 - Signs and time (Tübingen) 
1996 - Culture - Signs - Space (Amsterdam) 
1999 - Machines and history (Dresden) 
 
• The DGS awards a Semiotics Prize for Young Scholars every three years. 

Competition topics have been: 
 
1984 - How and why do sign systems change? 
Prizewinner: Karin Böhme-Dürr 

1987 - To what degree are sign systems instruments of creative action?  no prizewinner 

1990 - Simulation through signs. 
Prizewinners: Michael Müller and Hermann J. Sottong 

1993 - Social discrimination. 
Prizewinner: Martin Lindner 

1996 - Culture - Signs - Space. 
Prizewinner: Karin Wenz 

1999 - Machines and history.