Message from the chair

The field of research into Haptics excels for its multidisciplinary nature, reflecting the diffuse and complex nature of the underlying sensory systems, and also the importance and diversity of potential applications that the field can expect to unveil. It thus gives me great pleasure to welcome, on behalf of the EuroHaptics Society, all the disciplines represented at WorldHaptics 2011: The Fourth Joint EuroHaptics Conference and IEEE Haptics Symposium and to congratulate the organizers on an exciting and multifaceted program of events. While looking forward to this key meeting, it is also my pleasant duty to remind you of the next meeting for the community, EuroHaptics 2012, which in Summer 2012 will take place at the University of Tampere, a cultural center and the third largest city in Finland. The EuroHaptics Society and the conference organizers look forward to welcoming you all in 2012 to this international meeting with its European flavor and tradition of bringing together the best in scientific, medical, technological, educational as well as artistic endeavor that represents Haptics in all its fascinating dimensions. The EuroHaptics Society has been running interdisciplinary meetings in Europe on Haptics since the first meeting at the University of Birmingham in 2001.