This year, the European Society of Human Genetics celebrates its 50th anniversary. On this occasion, the European Human Genetics Conference returned to Copenhagen, where the first ESHG meeting was held in 1967.

To commemorate both this anniversary and the 25th anniversary of the EJHG, we published a special historical EJHG supplement at this meeting, on one hand delving deep into the ESHG’s first 25 years, with two papers from Peter Harper’s hand, one on the first 25 years of ESHG history and one with interviews with many of the early Genetics pioneers of Europe. In addition, we republished a collection of noteworthy papers, originally published in the first two decades of our existence.

Our promise to revisit the EJHG’s second quarter century later in the year, as a second instalment of the ‘Anniversary papers’, is being fulfilled with the issue in front of you. Considering that the expansion and consolidation of the ESHG was truly a Europe-wide group effort, we decided to enlist a large body of key people from this period to contribute their recollections.

The kaleidoscopic series of commemorations, opened with Peter Harpers’ own perspective on this period, will give the readers a broad and deep view on this episode, in which genetics has moved to the centre stage in current health care.

Wishing you good reading once again,

Gertjan van Ommen, Editor, Mary Rice, Guest Editor