The 17th issue of the International School on Quantum Electronics (17th ISQE) was traditionally organized by the Institute of Electronics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. It took place this year in hotel Festa Panorama, Nessebar from 24 to 28 September 2012.

The first day of the ISQE began with welcoming speeches by the organizers and welcoming remarks were presented by the head of the Institute of Electronics- Bulgarian Academy of Sciences assoc. prof. Sanka Gateva and the chairmen of the Advisory board of the school prof. A. Serafetinidis from NTUA, Greece.

Lecturers from 18 leading laboratories have been invited to present the recent development in five scientific topics:

• Laser − matter interactions
• Laser spectroscopy and metrology
• Laser remote sensing and ecology
• Lasers in biology and medicine
• Laser systems and nonlinear optics

The lectures were structured to start brief overview in the domain for the very young participants and point out the recent achievements and results in the presented laboratory. The final program contained presentations of 18 invited speakers from 13 countries.

The 17th ISQE has been visited by 92 regular participants and 5 accompanying persons from 16 countries. They have presented 79 poster contributions. The young participants (aged under 35) was given the opportunity to participate in the "Best young scientist poster presentation” competition. The competition meets 15 candidates from 5 countries. The International Advisory- and Program- Committees have elected a jury to evaluate the quality of the posters. The organizers were very pleased to give the jury the opportunity to distribute three sets of awards offered to the school by the Optical Society of America, by the SPIE and by EPS. The awards were published on the school web-site along with the nomination criteria one year before the school opening.