Beatriz Barbuy (Brazil) Bruce Elmegreen (US) Andrea Ferrara (Italy) Mary Kontizas (Greece) Pavel Kroupa (Germany) Xiaowei Liu (China) Mordecai Mark Mac Low (US) Mercedes Molla (Spain) Kenichi Nomoto (Japan) Bernard Pagel* (UK) Grazyna Stasinska (co-chair, France) Guillermo Tenorio-Tagle (Mexico) Jose M. Vilchez (co-chair, Spain)	Ioannis Bellas-Velidis (co-chair) Ian Cooper Anastasios Dapergolas Evangelos Kontizas Vasiliki Petropoulou Sergio Simon-Diaz Grazyna Stasinska (co-chair) Jose M. Vilchez

* Bernard Pagel passed away in July 2007, shortly after the SOC had been nominated. He devoted his scientific life to many topics closely related to the aims of this conference. He had a very strong impact on the work of several generations of astronomers interested in cosmic abundances and chemical evolution of galaxies. We want to acknowledge his immediate support of the idea of this workshop, and to pay tribute to his great contributions to the study of the chemical enrichment of galaxies and the Universe.