The opening conference is borne to David C. Muddiman from the NC State University (USA). It is named ‘Innovations in Mass Spectrometry Platform Technologies for Epithelial Ovarian Cancer Research’. There will also be other conferences like ‘GCxGC-TOF-MS-A Powerful Technique for Environmental Studies’ by Lourdes Ramos from the Instituto de Química Orgánica General of the Spanish National Research Councill or CSIC (Madrid), ‘Programming flow in capillary microfluidics: from concepts to assays’ by Emmanuel Delamarche from the Zurich Research Laboratory of the IBM (Switzerland), ‘Main Features and Potentiality in Separation Science’ by Salvatore Fanalid of the Institute of Chemical Methodologies of CNR (Italy), ‘The Analytical Chemistry facing the globalisation challenges’ by professor Ángel Maquieira from the Chemistry Department of the IDM (Universitat Politècnica de València) and ‘Multiplexed and Quantitative Bioanalysis using Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS)’ by Karen Faulds, from the University of Strathclyde (Glasgow, UK). Furthermore, 23 oral communications and 160 posters will be presented.

The biannual meeting of the SEQA means an opportunity to share the achievements and progresses in this scientific branch and it is also a chance to create the new collaboration’s conditions on the national and international level. In fact, there will be Portuguese, Italian, French, English, German, Swiss, American, Brazilian, Chilean, Tunisian, Algerian and Iranian authors, among others.

Together with the national meeting, there will also take place two special conferences. One of them will be dedicated to Teaching in Analytical Chemistry, in which 8 oral communications and 17 posters will be presented along with the invited conference 'New macroescenario for higher education. MOOC and masters by videoconference in real time’ by Mª Purificación Galindo Villardón from the Department of Statistics, University of Salamanca.

The second of these meetings is about the specific issue of Speciation, which will discuss the specific problems of this type of analysis that affects the environment and the quality and safety of the food. It will count on the guest speech ‘Arsenic speciation in food: occurrence, analytical methods, risk assessment, risk management and toxicological update’ by Tanja Schwerdtle, from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), ‘Risk Assessment’, University of Potsdam (Germany) and ‘The problem of analysis of arsenic speciation in food’ by Josep Calderón from the ‘Laboratorio de la Agencia de Salud Pública de Barcelona’. In addition, 9 oral communications and 14 posters will be presented.

With these conferences and meetings, the Universitat de València and the city of Valencia become, once again, a meeting point for people from differents backgrounds and mentalities but united by a common goal: serve to the science and to the society.

Besides the scientific programme, there will also be visits to the historic site of the Universitat de València, the Town Hall and the ‘Ciudad de las Ciencias’.