ETAPS 2003 was the sixth instance of the European Joint Conferences on T- ory and Practice of Software. ETAPS is an annual federated conference that was establishedin1998bycombininganumberofexistingandnewconferences.This yearitcomprised?veconferences(FOSSACS,FASE,ESOP,CC,TACAS),14- tellite workshops (AVIS, CMCS, COCV, FAMAS, Feyerabend, FICS, LDTA, RSKD, SC, TACoS, UniGra, USE, WITS and WOOD), eight invited lectures (not including those that are speci?c to the satellite events), and several tu- rials. We received a record number of submissions to the ?ve conferences this year: over 500, making acceptance rates fall below 30% for every one of them. Congratulations to all the authors who made it to the ?nal program! I hope that all the other authors still found a way of participating in this exciting event and I hope you will continue submitting. A special event was held to honour the 65th birthday of Prof. Wlad Turski, one of the pioneers of our young science. The deaths of some of our "fathers" in thesummerof2002-Dahl,DijkstraandNygaard-remindedusthatSoftware Science and Technology is, perhaps, no longer that young.
Against this sobering background, it is a treat to celebrate one of our most prominent scientists and his lifetime of achievements. It gives me particular personal pleasure that we are able to do this for Wlad during my term as chairman of ETAPS.