Studying complex systems has enormously changed our view of the world. The discovery that actions and reactions are often disproportionate and that small perturbations can cause tremendous responses, has led to new scientific disciplines such as catastrophe theory, chaos theory, and the theory of phase transitions.

The behavior of complex systems is often dominated by their internal dynamics and hence only poorly controllable from outside. This has been addressed by the concepts of self-organisation and emergence. In many cases, a complex system can even evolve into one out of several (meta-)stable states, which is in clear contrast to linearly behaving systems with a unique solution. In addition, random perturbations, diversity (heterogeneity) in the properties of the individual system elements,
network effects, time delays, and incomplete or uncertain information can lead to unexpected and sometimes paradoxical effects.

During more than 30 years, the research devoted to complex systems has led to many exciting, surprising, and fundamentally deep results. What is still lacking, however, is the intensive transfer of knowledge across the boundaries of the relevant scientific disciplines, like physics, mathematics, biology and computer science. Also, the results only occasionally found their way into disciplines such as economics, psychology, political sciences and engineering. The latter also concerns the education of students. As a result, there are relatively few industrially or economically relevant applications.

Because of the evident potentialofthescience of complex systems and because of the increasing problems, e.g., in the management of complex electronic or software systems, and in the control of political and economic networks, the European Union has decided to strengthen the research in complexsystems and to foster the transfer of knowledge. Correspondingly, within the programs NEST (New and Emergent Science and Technology) and IST-FET (Information Society Technology - Future and Emerging Technologies), significant investments have been made to support new fields of research such as networks, cognitive systems, artificial cells, autonomously interacting robots, and many other areas.

The recently established European Complex Systems Society and the series of conferences under the title "European Conference on Complex Systems" has to be seen in this context. It aims at bringing together the various related disciplines, at focusing the diverse research activities, and at fostering them. The goals of this annual conference are to reflect the recent progress in the field of complexity science and to significantly increase the actively involved community.

The first three conferences took place in three different countries, namely Italy (Torino), France (Paris), and Great Britain (Oxford). In 2007, this conference series continues in Dresden, Germany.
Dresden and its neighbourhood (Berlin, Leipzig, Prague, etc.) offer a phantastic scientific environment with world-famous institutions and various Max Planck Institutes such as the one for the Physics of Complex Systems. So, there are ample opportunities to exchange ideas and get inspired.