The 2008 Linear Collider Workshop (LCWS08) and the International Linear Collider meeting (ILC08) were hosted by a consortium of Illinois institutions: Argonne National Laboratory, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), Illinois Institute of Technology, Northern Illinois University, Northwestern University, University of Chicago, University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), and University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. The meetings were held on the UIC campus in Chicago, Illinois, on November 16-20, 2008.

This was the eleventh in a series of workshops that have become the international fora developing the physics case and reviewing detector and accelerator designs for an electron-positron linear collider.

The conference was attended by about 350 scientists and engineers from around the world. It included plenary sessions on the first and last day, and up to 14 parallel sessions during each of the other three days.

At the opening plenary session, Barry Barish, Director of the Global Design Effort (GDE), offered a GDE status and plans report, followed by Sakue Yamada, ILC Research Director, who gave an update of the ILC detector R&D activities. Jonathan Bagger closed that session with a presentation on the physics case and on the public outreach challenge for the ILC. At the closing plenary session, Nicholas Walker, Deputy European GDE Director, and Rolf Heuer, the new Director General of CERN, summarized the ILC and LCWS workshop activities respectively.

The success of the meeting was thanks to the outstanding efforts of the International Committee, LCWS and ILC Program Committees, Working Group Conveners, Local Organizing Committee, and Secretariat and the support offered by the organizing institutions and the Fermilab Research Alliance along with the US Department of Energy.

-- Nikos Varelas
Chair of the Local Organizing Committee