An international meeting with the title "Colloquium on Atomic Spectra and Oscillator Strengths for Astrophysics and Fusion Research" was held at the Physics Department, University of Lund during August 17–19, 1983. The purpose of the meeting was to bring together a limited number of "producers and consumers" of spectroscopic data to discuss the needs for data and the possibilities to meet the demands. The scientific committee for the meeting consisted of T Andersen, Aarhus, O Engvold, Oslo, H W Drawin, Fontenay-aux-Roses, N J Peacock, Culham, and J O Ekberg, S Johansson, U Litzén and I Martinson from the Lund Spectroscopy Group.
The meeting was attended by 60 participants from nine countries. General reviews of the meeting topics were presented in twelve invited lectures, while recent results were reported as short talks or posters. All the invited and the majority of the contributed papers are presented in this Topical Issue of Physica Scripta.
The meeting was sponsored by the University of Lund and the Swedish Energy Research Commission.