As for the preceding four International Symposia on Nitrogen Fixation, held in Pullman, Washington USA (1974); Salamanca, Spain (1976); Madison, Wisconsin, USA (1978); and Canberra, Australia (1980), the 5th Symposium held from August 28 - September 3, 1983 in Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands, received the gene- rous support of the Charles F. Kettering Foundation Research Laboratory and the Tennessee Valley Authority. This support has helped research progress in this broad field of science by offering a forum both for the exchange of ideas and for scientific summary and discussion as captured over the last 10 years in each of the four books published previously. Although all previous meetings were well attended, the present conference was the largest so far. 550 scien- tists from 60 different countries attended the "Leeuwenhorst Conference", re- presenting the many different disciplines actively involved in research in this field: chemists, biochemists, molecular biologists, geneticists, microbiologists, plant physiologists, agriculturalists. A large number of them had to go through a difficult period to raise the necessary funds to attend. In addition, a parallel meeting of "policymakers" from Southeast Asia, Africa and South America was held under the auspices of Crosscurrents International Institute, Dayton, OR, USA and the United Nations University, Tokyo, Japan. These participants attended some of the scientific sessions to benefit from the vision of a number of scientists at the symposium.