The 29th EPS Conference on Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion took place in Montreux, Switzerland, from June 17th to 21st 2002. It was organised by the Centre de Recherches en Physique des Plasmas (CRPP) of the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, on behalf of the Plasma Physics Division of the European Physical Society (EPS). The local organising committee was almost entirely composed of staff from CRPP:Jo Lister, chairmanYves R Martin, vice-chairmanRoland Behn, scientific secretaryBasil P Duval, ELISE manager and conference proceedingsPaula Halter, administrative secretarySarka Horackova, administrative secretaryThe conference programme covered a wide range of topics in plasma physics in general and in controlled fusion research in particular: basic plasma physics, magnetic confinement experiments, inertial confinement, laser plasmas, short pulse phenomena, low-temperature plasmas, astrophysical and geophysical plasmas, plasma and magnetic confinement theory and modelling, plasma edge physics, plasma heating, plasma diagnostics, plasma applications, processing, radiation generation, and dusty plasmas. In addition three specialist sessions were held on the subjects of : `Laser Plasma Particle Acceleration', `Edge, SOL and Divertor Plasma Turbulence and Transport' and `Dusty and Complex Plasmas'. The scientific programme and paper selection were the responsibility of the International Programme Committee appointed by the Board of the EPS Plasma Physics Division. The committee was composed of:C Varandas, chairman EURATOM-IST, Lisbon, PortugalA Bécoulet EURATOM-CEA, Cadarache, France A Boozer, contact person to APS Columbia University, New York, USAD J Campbell EFDA-CSU, Garching, Germany S C Cowley Imperial College, London, UK J-C Gauthier Ecole Polytechnique Palaiseau, FranceD Habs Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München, Germany T C Hender UKAEA-Fusion, Abingdon, UK J B Lister CRPP-EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland A G Litvak Institute of Applied Physics, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia T Märk Universitt Innsbruck, Austria P A Norreys Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, UK P Pavlo Institute of Plasma Physics, Prague, Czech Republic J Sanchez EURATOM-CIEMAT, Madrid, Spain G van Oost Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium F Wagner MPI für Plasmaphysik, Greifswald, Germany V Zanza EURATOM-ENEA, Frascati, ItalyThis committee selected 30 invited talks, including review and tutorial lectures, and allocated 36 oral presentations. The majority of the contributed papers (450) were presented as posters in 4 sessions. The conference was attended by more than 620 participants from 37 countries, which made it a major forum for exchange of ideas and fruitful scientific discussion. A major event during the conference was the award of the Hannes Alfvén Prize to Professor Marshall Rosenbluth, University of California, San Diego, USA. The conference programme also included an evening session dedicated to a lecture by Professor I Fells, University of Newcastle, UK, on `Clean and Secure Energy for the 21st Century?'. A special exhibition presented the proposed ITER sites in France and Spain.Following the tradition of this conference series, four-page summaries of all contributed papers are published as the Europhysics Conference Abstracts series, volume 26B. The publication is in the form of a CD-ROM sent free of charge to all participants and is also accessible via the website: http://elise.epfl.ch.This special issue of Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion contains papers of the invited talks at the 29th EPS Conference on Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion. These papers have been assessed according to the standards of the journal and examined by referees selected from amongst the members of the International Programme Committee.The guest editors would like to thank all authors for their efforts in providing a high quality paper in due time and Institute of Physics Publishing for the continuing support of this conference series. They express their gratitude to the members of the Programme Committee, who accepted the additional task of refereeing, with minimum delay, all the papers in this special issue.