Abstract
As part of a general strategy to increase international communication and collaboration, a series of workshops or small conferences based on materials engineering developments is planned at Xi'an Jiao Tong University (XJTU). The first of these – on 'Nano-mechanical property characterisation' – was organised on 10–13 July 2007 by the XJTU International Surface Engineering R&D Centre which is part of the State Key Laboratory for the Mechanical Behaviour of Materials sited at the university.