LAUSR

The 18th European Conference on Applications of Surface and Interface Analysis (ECASIA'19) was held in the International Congress Center of Dresden, Germany, from 15 to 20 September 2019. It was the third time ECASIA was organized in Germany after the early beginning of the conference series in Fellbach/Stuttgart (1987) and in Berlin (2003). As hosts, it was a pleasure for us that the International Steering Committee (ISC) selected Dresden as the conference location. Dresden really is a center of innovation with many excellent universities and colleges, a lot of well-known scientific institutes and modern industries using surface science and nanotechnologies. Thus, we tried to focus the conference to future-relevant topics such as materials science/engineering, modern electronics and life-science/ biotechnology, which are also well established here in Dresden. We were glad to have prominent speakers for our plenary talks at Monday, Thursday, and Friday: Paul van der Heide (IMEC, Belgium), Erik Garnett (AMOLF, Netherlands), Birgit Hagenhoff (TASCON, Germany), and Eva Olsson (CHALMERS, Sweden). Furthermore, 15 excellent keynote lecturers accepted our invitation. All of them gave us a perfect insight into current fields of basic research and industrial applications in surface and interface science, to re-experience “The spirit of ECASIA” also at this year's conference. As another highlight of ECASIA'19, Prof. Aleksander Jablonski (Academy of Science, Warsaw, Poland) was honored by the ISC with the ECASIA-Award for his “Outstanding Scientific Achievements within the Field of Surface and Interface Analysis.” He presented an award plenary lecture at Wednesday evening with the title “Fundamental aspects of quantitative surface analysis by AES and XPS.” With 400 scientific participants, ECASIA'19 had again a very good resonance in the community. Approximately 200 oral presentations (four parallel sessions) and 150 posters (two poster sessions) were presented, ensuring a broad and interesting scientific program. The importance of the poster sessions with the possibilities to deeply discuss new results was also this year underlined by granting the “SIA Poster Award” to the selected three best poster presenters. The participation from industrial companies was not only visible during the well-received industrial exhibition with its formal opening at Monday evening but also during many interesting scientific talks given by company representatives. Reaching participants from 36 countries from all over the world ECASIA is truly well established as a fully international conference. Special thanks go to the authors who sent their manuscripts for this special issue of Surface and Interface Analysis. The papers are a representative cross section of the topics presented at the conference. In addition to the scientific program, social contact is an important part of such a conference. Besides the industrial exhibition and the poster sessions, the conference tour offered the opportunity to make contact with each other in a nonformal manner. During a bus tour, we learnt about the city's architecture and history, had an interesting walk through Pillnitz Park and Palace, and finally, had a steamboat tour across the Elbe River back to the city—including the observation of the 100-year-old steam engine working in the heart of the boat. The formal evening dinner in the Conference Center was finally highlighted by a spectacular dancing performance of the participants themselves. The organization of such a conference is a challenge and takes much time and effort over several years. This is only possible with substantial assistance. Thus, we sincerely wish to acknowledge the help of the organizing agencies and of all the ECASIA committees, the support of the participating institutes and the Technical University Dresden, and last but not least, all the sponsors. Special thanks also for the financial support of the “Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft” under grant no. OS 119/9–1. As a result of the current COVID-19 Pandemic the ECASIA International Steering Committee has revised the arrangements for ECASIA'21. Instead of the traditional week-long meeting in 2021 there will be a one-day virtual meeting in June 2021 and the five-day meeting planned for that time will be postponed until 2022. All those involved with the ECASIA Conference Series hope that you will be able to attend both events. We look forward to seeing you in person in Limerick in 2022.