Advances in the science of light

The fifth International School and Conference on Photonics—Photonica 2015 held on 24 August–28 August 2015 in Belgrade, Serbia, was one of the largest events dedicated to the celebration of the UNESCO proclaimed International year of light and light based technologies (IYL 2015) in southern Europe. In a year in which many magnificent scientific anniversaries related to great achievements in light science from the last thousand years coincided, the Vinca Institute of Nuclear Sciences (Belgrade, Serbia), the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, the Optical Society of Serbia and Aston University (Birmingham, UK) tried to contribute to this global initiative which highlighted to the mankind the immense importance of light and related technologies in everyday life by organizing this respectable scientific and educational meeting. The conference was attended by a record number of 222 registered participants where, for the first time, domestic researchers have been outnumbered by foreign ones from 30 countries and all continents. Almost eighty PhD and master students had the luck and privilege to get special postal envelopes dedicated to the IYL 2015 and to listen to six illuminating tutorial talks, seven red-hot keynote talks and 21 invited lectures from