Welcome to the ISEKI_Food 2011 conference - Bridging Training and Research for Industry and the Wider Community - which will be held in Milan, Italy, from 31^st August to 2^nd September 2011.

This is the second event organised by the ISEKI_Food network, through the projects ISEKI_Food3 and ISEKI_Mundus2 supported by the European Commission under the LLP and Erasmus Mundus programmes, in collaboration with the ISEKI_Food Association.

The general aims of the ISEKI_Food conferences are:

• to contribute to the creation of an "open" international forum for researchers, education scientists, technologists, government agencies and industry representatives and trainers, and food consumers to promote constructive dialogue and collaboration on topics relevant to Food Science and Technology, Industry and Education.
• to exchange experiences of innovative learning and teaching methodologies, and
• to present and disseminate the results of the activities developed by the ISEKI projects.

The first Conference held in Porto, Portugal in 2008 joined together almost 250 scientist from 50 countries in Europe and the rest of the world to hold an international discussion on issues relevant to education in Food Studies and its interaction with research developments and industry needs.

ISEKI_Food 2011 will build on this successful foundation and, as before, will include two workshops.

The conference city Milan is one of the most international cities in Italy, being recognised as a world cultural, scientific and commercial capital. The University of Milan, which will host the conference, was founded in 1456 and nowadays is a public multidisciplinary teaching and research institution. The first course in Food Science and Technology in Italy began at the Faculty of Agriculture of this university in 1962 and became a reference for the development of Food Studies in this country.

We hope that you find our conference of interest and we look forward to welcoming you to Milan in 2011!

The Organising Committee