It is a pleasure and an honor to invite you to the 26th Annual Meeting of the German Society of Crystallography to the University of Duisburg-Essen. The venue of the Annual Meeting is Essen in the heart of the Ruhrgebiet that is actually not as grey as some of you might expect. In the contrary, after coal and steel industries have contracted and shifted to more environmentally friendly processes, this area has undergone a remarkable transformation. Notably, in 2010, Essen was the center of the European Capital of Culture, and in 2017, it is the European Green Capital.

Many scientific disciplines rely on crystallography, covering inter alia fields like materials sciences, geosciences, crystal structure determination, and protein crystallography. The University of Duisburg-Essen with its two campi at Duisburg and Essen (and a third campus for the University Hospital) has two central research units with direct relevance to crystallography: Nanosciences, as represented by the Center for Nanointegration Duisburg-Essen (CeNIDE), and biological sciences, as represented by the Center for Biomedical Technology (ZMB). Both have supported the Annual Meeting. In the direct vicinity there are other major research institutions like the Universities at Bochum and Dortmund and a number of Max-Planck Institutes and Fraunhofer institutes, many of them relying on chemical, physical and biological crystallography.

A number of prominent Plenary Speakers have agreed to give presentations at our Annual Congress. We invite you to come to Essen in 2018, to contribute and to participate in an exciting conference in a stimulating environment. Join us for a memorable experience!