The Fifth European Conference on Industrial Mathematics (ECMI 90) took
place at Lahti, Finland on June 6-9, 1990. The conference was organised
by the Rolf Nevanlinna Institute together with the Lahti Research and
Training Centre of the University of Helsinki. Like its predecessors the
Lahti meeting was devoted to the exchange of experience, ideas and
methods from various fields of industrial mathematics. The series of
ECMI conferences have clearly established an important forum of
interaction between the advancing front of technology and one of its
crucial development resources, modern applications-oriented mathematics.
The precise title of the conferences has been the subject of some
discussion and it has been argued that there is no such area which can
be labelled as "industrial mathematics". This is certainly true if one
thinks only in terms of the range of ideas, theorems, methods and
algorithms constituting mathematics all of which may be applied. However
with another viewpoint industrial mathematics is not a collection of
topics but refers to the interactive process in which mathematics, the
science, meets the real world of applications. Ideally this interaction
involves both good mathematics and technological advance. The computer
revolution has created a new era in technology with the increased
computational capability to simulate complex industrial processes,
devices, and other technolog- making it possible ical systems. This
simulation depends on mathematical modelling and analysis and these
techniques, sometimes ingenious but often quite routine, have provided a
powerful tool for industrial scientists and creative research
management.