The International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS) is the leading international conference in the theory and practice of software agents. The conference attracts delegates from many different backgrounds; from those developing agent-based software products and services to those working in the theoretical foundations of the discipline. The AAMAS-05 conference will be held in July 2005 in Utrecht, the Netherlands, and will, for the first time, feature a track specifically intended for industrial participants: the AAMAS Industry Track. The industry track is being organised in cooperation with AgentLink, Europe's IST-funded coordination activity for autonomous agents and multi-agent systems (see http://www.agentlink.org).

Painter: It is a pretty mocking of the life. Here is a touch; is't good?
Poet: I will say of it, It tutors nature: artificial strife Lives in these touches, livelier than life.

- Shakespeare, Timon of Athens, Act I, Scene 1.

Artificial Life seeks to understand, extract, use and abuse the organisational principles and information processing of natural living systems. Interdisciplinary by nature, it involves researchers in Computer Science, Biology, Physics, Chemistry, etc. The 8th European Conference on Artificial Life, to be held in Canterbury, England, in september 2005, wishes to gather all these communities to present the latest advances, through a technical track, and discuss the main directions for the future, through a conceptual track.