TheAdvanced Course onArti?cial IntelligenceACAI2001, with the subtitle of "Multi- Agent Systems and Their Applications", held in Prague, Czech Republic, represented a joint event of ECCAI (the European Coordinating Committee for Arti?cial Intel- gence) andAgentLink, the European Network of Excellence forAgent-Based Comp- ing. Whereas ECCAI organizes two-weekACAI courses on different topics each second year, AgentLink's European Agent Systems Summer School (EASSS) has been an - nual event since 1999. In 2001, both of these important events were merged, giving weight to the fact that multi-agent systems currently represent one of the hottest topics of AI research. The name, ACAI2001 Summer School, was intended to emphasize that this event continued the tradition of regular ECCAI activities (ACAI), as well as that of the EASSS summer schools ofAgentLink. The PragueACAI Summer School was proposed and initiated by both the Gerstner Laboratory, Czech Technical University, Prague (GL-CTU) and the Czech Society for Cybernetics and Informatics (CSKI), with the support of theAustrian Research Institute forArti?cial Intelligence in Vienna (OFAI).
One of the most important stimulating factors behind the organization ofACAI2001 wasthesupportprovidedbytheEuropeanCommissiontotheGerstnerLaboratorywithin the frame of the MIRACLE Centre of Excellence project (No. ICA1-CT-2000-70002). Additional support was later provided by both the Commission's AgentLink II project (IST-1999-29003) and ECCAI. The combined ?nancial and conceptual participation of these important international bodies enabled the invitation of a large number of truly world-class lecturers in this ?eld, who added a unique ?avor to the event.