The 27^th International Conference on Computer Safety, Reliability and Security SAFECOMP 2008 was held in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, hosted by the Safety Critical Systems Club and Warwick Medical School. The conference took place Monday 22.09.2008 - Wednesday 24.09.2008. Post conference workshops and events took place on Thursday 25.09.2008.

The key theme of the conference was Resilience of Distributed Systems and Organisations. Keynote addresses were given by:

• Prof. Erik Hollnagel: Critical Information Infrastructures - Should Models Represent Structures or Functions?
• Dr Colling O'Halloran: Security, Interoperability and Resilience for MANETs and a Fixed Core
• Dr Roger Rivett: Technology, Society & Risk

Please also refer to the full programme. Selected papers have been published in revised and extended form in a speical issue of Reliability Engineering and System Safety 2011;6(1).