This Special Issue is dedicated to the 4th International Dairy Federation (IDF) Dairy Science and Technology Week. It does not constitute the proceedings of the symposium but rather a selection of papers from this symposium. All the contributors to the symposium were invited to submit an original research paper or a review article from their oral presentations and/or posters. Submitted manuscripts were peer-reviewed by reviewers selected by the journal editorial board and/or the scientific committee of the symposium.

Today’s scientists are more and more inclined to attend highly focused symposium in order to progress their understanding of their disciplinary field, which is understandable. The drawback, however, is that this results in fewer opportunities for discussions with specialists of other fields which would give the individual scientist a trans-disciplinary overview of a complex field, such as… dairy!

The 4th International Dairy Federation Dairy Science & Technology Week is one of these rare opportunities, mixing microbiologists, biochemists and cheese/process technologists. The last meeting was held in Rennes in April 2009, and more than 200 participants from 30 countries attended the conference, including 30% industrial R & D scientists. One hundred and seven posters were also presented, and, as an interesting novelty, a FIL award was given to the three best posters, which will allow young scientists to join the next IDF World Dairy Summit in Berlin.

Significant new advances in the fields of structure and functionalities of milk macromolecules, as well as in the in situ expression of cheese ecosystems or sustainable dairy processes, were presented. The delicate situation of traditional cheeses around the world was also highlighted in a keynote lecture which is fully presented in this volume.

We would like to thank all the participants for their attendance and contributions, which made the meeting more fruitful for everyone involved. The 2010 edition of the IDF Dairy Science & Technology Week will be held in Tromsø (Norway) in June and we would like to take this advance opportunity to wish the organisers a successful event.

With our best wishes,

© INRA, EDP Sciences, 2010