ISSS 2014 is the fourth of the series of international symposia on the science of steels, which started in 2007 in Kyoto and followed by the second in 2009 and the third in 2012 at the same place.  It is a project fully supported by the Iron and Steel Institute of Japan (ISIJ), aiming at presenting the latest results of frontier research on iron and steel and discussing them in depth.  Topics are carefully selected to bring good balance between academic seeds and industrial needs.  The fourth symposium is organized by the committee consisting of 24 active researchers from academia and industry, with three chairpersons: TSUZAKI, K. (Kyushu U.), TSUJI, N. (Kyoto U.), and OHMURA, T. (NIMS).

The symposium will take place amid the calm atmosphere in the suburbs of Kyoto, the historic city (the former capital) of Japan.  The number of partici­pants will be limited to about 80, partly because of the capacity of the facility, but it is intended so that all participants communicate well – senior and up-and-coming research­ers and engineers, from academia and from industry.  Academic sessions will start from the late evening on 3rd November, 2014.

The symposium consists of oral and poster sessions.  All oral presentations are given by invited speakers while contributions are to be presented as posters.  The topics featured in ISSS 2014 are deformation, fracture, dislocations, voids, damage, hydrogen effect, in-situ observation techniques, advanced analyses of nanostructures, and theoretical/simulation studies.  The proceedings will contain papers of all the oral and poster presentations, and will be published by the ISIJ.