This Conference in Eindhoven represented the twentieth anniversary of similar conferences held every two years on the topics of gas discharge and plasma physics. The first of these conferences was also held in The Netherlands. Since then, plasma physics has evolved considerably. Basically the aim of the organizing committee was to divide up the conference as evenly as possible between contributions on gas-discharge physics and contributions on plasma physics. However, of a total of 397 contributed papers, only 131 referred to plasma physics. Of the thirteen invited papers, eight were concerned with plasma physics and controlled of fusion research.