The "International Symposium on Scleroderris Canker of Conifers" held June 21-24, 1983 in Syracuse, New York was the result of mutual interest expressed by the USDA Forest Service, the Canadian Forestry Service, and the State Uni versity of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY ESF). The Symposium was an official function of the working party canker diseases (Scleroderris), Subject group S.2.06.02 Division II IUFRO. We wish to express our thanks to the USDA Forest Service, Research and the Canadian Forestry Service for financial support of the program, and SUNY ESF for hosting the Symposium. A major research program was launched in 1977 to study the biology of the European strain as found in North America. Support for this research resulted from spec i a 1 fund ing by the Congress of the United States to the USDA Forest Service, North Central Forest Experiment Station. Most of these funds were released as cooperative research grants to universities in the Lake States and the northeast. Many of the research papers delivered at this Symposium are the direct result of these research grants. While the Symposium deliberately emphasized the North American experience 'with Gremmeniella abietina in order to provide a focus for the meeting, we were anxious that this Symposium would also include studies from other countries.