The 2019 International Symposium for Soft Matter Science and Technology (SMST) co-hosted by South China University of Technology, Peking University, Sichuan University, Donghua University, and Xiamen University was held in Shanghai from November 21^st to November 23^rd. Edwin L. Thomas, member of the National Academy of Engineering of United States, Egbert W. Meijer, member of the European Academy of Sciences, Itamar Willner, member of the Israel Academy of Sciences, the German National Academy of Sciences, and the European Academy of Sciences, Virgil Percec, member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and Takuzo Aida, Dick Broer, Nicholas A. Kotov, Ulrich Wiesner and other more than 200 outstanding scientists and scholars attended the symposium. 

International Symposium for SMST was initiated in 2017 . This symposium has been successfully held in Guangzhou and Chengdu in  2017 and 2018 respectively. The theme of this year is “Chemistry and Physics of Supramolecular Assembly”, focusing on the fundamental scientific difficulties, potential application values, and the latest research progress of physics and chemistry relating to SMST. The three-day symposium adopts the pattern of “Gordon Research Conference” with 19 invited reports, each of which contains one hour of report and 20 minutes of interactive discussion. Many of the sharings are new to the public.

A special 3-minute poster section were set for each poster to enhance the communication between academic gurus and junior researchers and students. Nineteen researchers and 19 students from native and foreign universities shared their work and discussed actively with experts and scholars. Yu Shao from Peking University, Xiaoyu Li from Beijing Institute of Technology, Jia Chen from Donghua University, and Chenyang Zhang from Jilin University were elected to Best Poster Award.

Focusing on the frontier of soft matter and interdisciplinary research with in-depth discussion, this symposium greatly promoted the academic exchanges of soft matter in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, materials, engineering, and other disciplines, and received positive and enthusiastic response from the soft matter community. The International Symposium for SMST has been recognized as one of the world’s grand academic events on soft matter with expanding scale and high engagement. The 4^th International Symposium for SMST is scheduled to be held at Jilin University, and academic gurus from all over the world will meet again then.