The 37th International Workshop on Graph-Theoretic Concepts in Computer Science (WG 2011) took place in Tepl´a Monastery, Czech Republic, during June 21–24, 2011. It was attended by 80 participants who came from all over the world not only to deliver or listen to interesting talks, but also to celebrate the 65th birthday of Ludek Kucera, a long-time member of the WG Steering Committee.

The conference series has a long tradition. Since 1975,WG has been organized 21 times in Germany, four times in The Netherlands, twice in Austria, France and the Czech Republic, and once in Greece, Italy, Norway, Slovakia, Switzerland, and the UK. WG aims at merging theory and practice by demonstrating how concepts from graph theory can be applied to various areas in computer science, and by extracting new graph theoretic problems from applications. Its goal is to present emerging research results and to identify and explore directions of future research. As always, this year’s conference was well-balanced with respect to established researchers and young scientists.

This year’s conference received 54 submissions, two of which were withdrawn before entering the review process. Each submission was carefully reviewed by at least three, and on average four, members of the Program Committee. The Committee decided to accept 28 papers for presentation at the conference and publication in the proceedings. The conference program was further enriched by two invited talks presented by D´aniel Marx and Alberto Marchetti-Spaccamela and whose extended abstracts are also included in the proceedings.

The site of the conference was the Premonstratensian abbey at Tepl´a, near Marianske lazne in western Bohemia. As mentioned above, the annualWG workshops have a long tradition going back to 1975 when the first WG took place in Berlin. The Premonstratensian Order has an incomparably longer tradition of, among other virtues, promoting science, technology and knowledge in general. The abbey at Tepl´a used to be a center of art and science for centuries, its library was one of the largest in the country, the abbey used to have its own observatory. Among the Premonstratensians from Tepl´a one can find rectors of the Charles University in Prague (Chrysostomus Pfrogner, Alois David), the vice-rector of the Naval Academy at Rijeka (Vojtech Knight Kunes) or the director of the Polytechnical Institute in Budapest (Lambert Mayer). Thus, though the vocation of a friar and a scientist may seem very different at the first sight, there are some similarities, too, the bottom line of which is a quest for truth. The abbey turned out to be a great venue for the conference.

The scientific program of the conferencewas complemented by a social program that contributed to a friendly and relaxing atmosphere. This included an organ concert given by a world-class organist, Ale?s B´arta, in the baroque church of the abbey, a wine tasting of the finest selection of wines from Znov´n Znojmo, and an excursion to Be?cov Castle with a display of the unique reliquary of St. Maurus.