Introduction

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to the 33^rd Electrical Insulation Conference (EIC), a fully sponsored conference of the IEEE DEIS. As the first General Chair of this conference series from outside of North America, I chose Seattle as the location for this year´s meeting because of its great reputation as a friendly city with many attractions as well as strong links to industry and technology. It would appear to have been a popular decision, as we received a significant number of submitted abstracts and this has resulted in a programme of 108 oral presentations and 39 poster presentations. All areas of the scope of this conference are represented and to ensure delivery of the programme, we will start on Sunday evening with an opening reception which will include the first of two poster sessions.