Despite the Covid-19 epidemic situation, the V edition of NanoInnovation has been held regularly from 15 to 18 September 2020. The organizers have structured the event with the purpose of ensuring a wide participation while keeping a strict respect of the rules for health protection and against the epidemic diffusion. To this purpose, the Conference has been structured by granting either the local presence of delegates or the remote participation by teleconferencing, while the exhibition hosted the maximum number of booths allowed by safety rules. As in our tradition, the conference has been hosted by the usual venue, in the Renaissance Cloister by Sangallo at the Faculty of Civil and Industrial Engineering of Sapienza University of Rome, which has been upgraded to allow the streaming connection from all the conference rooms. This dual channel organization has been appreciated by the delegates who attended the Conference sessions and the connected events.

NanoInnovation 2020 can praise 1.210 online registered participants and, on the whole, a total amount of more than 3.400 presences, in attendance and remotely, at the different activities carried out during the four days of conference, from the opening plenary sessions to the update training, from the thematic symposia to schools and satellite events.

The conference symposia have been proposed and organized by 26 co-organizers, whose contribution is warmly acknowledged. They fully understood and interpreted at the best the bottom-up principle, which is traditionally the structuring method of our Event.

We are particularly indebted with all the colleagues participating in the scientific symposia, starting from more than 60 chairs who managed at the best the dense programme of NanoInnovation, including:  1 round table, 2 plenary sessions, 55 technical thematic symposia, 73 posters in a dedicated session, 1 NEST prize for young researchers, 5 scientific multi-sessions workshops, 1 workshop dedicated to “Open Innovation and Open Science”, 2 schools, 5 satellite events, 1 update training organized in collaboration with Ordine degli Ingegneri della Provincia di Roma.

The contribution of more than 370 speakers who, in attendance and remotely, shared with us their knowledge and expertise, filling of interesting contents the scientific program, is gratefully acknowledged.

We warmly thank the 9 exhibitors, the 15 industrial supporters and the 9 institutional and scientific patronages, whose contribution helped in keeping NanoInnovation an open event with free access for all people interested in nano-bio-technologies.

Our deepest appreciation to Sapienza University of Rome for the kind hospitality, support and 

contribution; we are particularly grateful to the Faculty of Civil and Industrial Engineering (ICI) for allowing the access to the Renaissance Cloister despite this difficult epidemic situation, and to the Department of Basic and Applied Sciences for Engineering (SBAI) for the support during the preparation of NanoInnovation 2020.

We are also indebted with: The Agency for the Promotion of European Research (APRE) for organizing remotely the networking event with more than 89 Registered Participants and 52 meetings organized;

The Italian Trade Agency (ITA), that supporting the invitation of a delegation from Russia, Israel, Poland, Lithuania and Czech Republic.

The organizers are proud of this success, which demonstrates that, despite the unusual social situation due to the epidemic, the technical-scientific community belonging to nanotechnology is still strictly connected and that the modern communication tools can support the scientific discussion, even if the physical contacts have to be limited.

However we all hope that next Conference, scheduled from

21 to 24 September, 2021

will see the physical presence of many delegates in order to share both the scientific knowledge and the friendships tying most of us.

See you next year!