VIIIth Aluminium Surface Science and Technology Symposium

It is with great pride and satisfaction that I can close the Proceedings of the VIIIth Symposium of Aluminium Surface Science and Technology, held in Helsingor at the lovely Denmark cost. The reviewed papers have again been presented in a special volume of Surface and Interface Analysis. What started in 1997 in Antwerp as a symposium with the aim of mixing industry and university has survived after all these years. Both industries and universities have totally changed over this period as experienced by a lot of participants who have attended several previous versions in Antwerp, Manchester, Bonn, Beaune, Leiden, Sorrento, Madeira, … . We have always endeavoured to achieve a good mixture between industry and researchers, encouraging young PhD students to meet up with the important companies. The symposium has always been a success from that prospective and now, some that attended as young researchers in earlier ASST versions are often seen to participate as industrial partners. I would like to thank Rajan Ambat and the local team (Anne Deacon Juhl, Morten Stendahl Jellesen, and Flemming Jensen) for taking the initiative and organize this successful event in Denmark. We had an excellent mix of high level talks coming both from academia and industry combined with nice social events that allowed to keep our ASST network alive. I am also happy to announce that the next ASST VIII will be held in 2020 in Sweden, organized by Jinshan Pan. I am convinced that we can meet up again bringing academia and industry together in a lovely place in the north of Europe and continue the good work in high spirits!