Bridging the gap between the fundamental concepts of condensed matter theory, cluster-, and biophysics and a quantitative description and prediction of real materials' properties and functions is one of the biggest challenges in computational materials science and engineering. A variety of exciting methodologies is currently being developed and probed, ranging from extensions to density functional theory (DFT), like time-dependent DFT, to "beyond DFT" approaches such as many-body perturbation theory, quantum chemistry concepts, and quantum Monte Carlo methods. The goals are to reliably describe and predict the ground state (also for strongly correlated and/or van der Waals bonded materials), electronic excitations, as well as transport properties.

This conference will critically assess state-of-the-art and novel approaches in these fields, scrutinizing the applicability of various procedures to the most demanding systems and phenomena. Moreover, the theoretical achievements will be confronted with recent progress and challenging questions in different experimental techniques. To this extent, we will bring together scientists from different areas and generations to discuss forefront research and future perspectives.

The program will comprise keynote and invited lectures by leading scientists, contributed talks and a poster session.

Invited speakers include:

Ferdi Aryasetiawan (Chiba University / Japan)
Silke Biermann (École Polytechnique, Palaiseau / France)
Roberto Car (Princeton University, Princeton / USA)
David Ceperly (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign / USA)
Massimiliano Di Ventra (UC San Diego, La Jolla, CA / USA)
Matthew Foulkes (Imperial College, London / UK)
Xavier Gonze (Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain la Neuve / Belgium)
Eberhard K. U. Gross (Free University Berlin / Germany)
Martin Head-Gordon (UC Berkeley, CA / USA)
Ben Janesko (Rice University, Houston / USA)
Andreas Knorr (TU Berlin / Germany)
Gabriel Kotliar (Rutgers University, NJ / USA)
David Langreth (Rutgers University, NJ / USA)
Steven Louie (UC Berkeley, CA / USA)
Hans Lüth (Forschungszentrum Jülich / Germany)
John Perdew (Tulane University, NO / USA)
Patrick Rinke (Fritz-Haber-Institut, Berlin / Germany)
Peter Puschnig (University of Leoben, Leoben / Austria)
Lucia Reining (École Polytechnique, Palaiseau / France)
Eli Rothenberg (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory / USA)
Angel Rubio (University del Pais Vasco, San Sebastian / Spain)
Donald G. Truhlar (University of Minnesota / USA)
John C. Tully (Yale University, CT / USA)
Mark van Schilfgaarde (Arizona State University / USA)
Latha Venkataraman (Columbia University, NY / USA)