IUCr2011 (http://www.iucr2011madrid.es/), the most important crystallographic event held in Madrid (Spain) since the IUCr foundation in 1948, ended happily looking forward to the International Year of Crystallography (IYCr2013) and to Montreal (IUCr2014).

The opening ceremony, including presenting the three Ewald medal awards, the congress dinner accompanied by Dixie-Land live music, and the closing ceremony, encompassing the handover of the IUCr’s Presidency, were crowded events.

The congress brought together nearly 2800 people (1880 standard participants, 360 students, 350 grantees, 65 exhibitors and 113 accompanying persons). Up to 73 countries were represented with 2040 abstracts that were finally distributed in 98 Micro-Symposia with 490 oral and 1550 poster presentations, 20 of which were awarded and sponsored by 9 institutions or commercial companies.

In addition, 36 Keynote speakers covered the state of art of crystallography in many of its most important fields, from very large macromolecular assemblies, ribosome complexes, membrane proteins, supramolecular chemistry, structural aspects of bacterial pathogenicity, structural basis of cell regulatory processes, structural genomics, validation and error aspects in protein structures, XAFS as a new tool for protein structure-function investigations, ultrafast crystallography using X-ray free electron lasers, coherent X-ray diffraction, single-molecule and hybrid methods, new approaches to experimental phasing of macromolecules, automated electron diffraction tomography as an ab-initio structure solution method, polycrystalline materials, powder diffraction at nanoscale, magnetic neutron crystallography, commensurate and incommensurate structures, soft matter, solid gas materials, energy-related materials, crystal engineering, very recent advances in crystal growth, new topological structural characterization aspects, high-pressure molecular crystals and mineralogy, atomic resolution real-space imaging, and up to ornamental art of the Alhambra (from plane groups to quasilattices), among others. In summary, it showed the most recent research done world-wide in the most important scientific fields, from Mineralogy up to Chemistry, Physics, Material Sciences, Nanotechnology, Biochemistry, Biology and Biomedicine.

Special mention deserved the 4 Plenary Lectures of the congress. Three of them, based on the structural and functional aspects of ribosome, were presented by the 2009 Chemistry Nobel Laureates, Thomas A. Steitz, Venki Ramakrishnan and Ada Yonath. The fourth Lecture was given by Omar M. Yaghi on metal organic frameworks.

In addition, the congress also included 7 Parallel sessions and other events such as 6 Satellite Meetings and two Specialized Workshops.