This volume contains a substantial number of the papers presented at the mODa 7 conference. mODastands for Model Oriented Data Analysis and pre- vious conferences have been held in Wartburg (1987) (then in the GDR), St Kirik monastery, Bulgaria (1990), Petrodvorets, St Petersburg, Russia (1992), The island of Spetsos, Greece (1995), the Centre International de Rencontres Mathematiques, Marseilles, France (1998) and Puchberg/Schneeberg, Aus- tria, (2001). The purpose of these workshops has traditionally been to bring together scientists from the East and West interested in the optimal design of exper- iments and related topics and younger and senior researchers in the field. These traditions remain vital to the health of the series. During this period Europe has seen increasing unity and the organizers of and participants in mODa must take some satisfaction from the fact that the youthful ideals of the founders of the series are reflected in this transition. The present conference and mODa 6 are supported by a European Union conference grant (contract HPCF-CT 2000 00045) whose funding emphasis is on younger participants.
The company GlaxoSmithKline has very generously continued its support. We are very grateful for these substantial contribu- tions.