The explicit goal of the conference is to bridge the gap between networking hardware and software. This gap has come under scrutiny recently with the advent of programmable data planes such as P4. Traditionally, the hardware (EE) and software (CS) communities have been clearly separated as they focused on their respective parts of the stack. Today, this separation is blurred and the need for inter-community discussion and collaboration is imperative. HPSR 2018 plans to bridge this gap.