ETAPS 2005 was the eighth instance of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software. ETAPS is an annual federated conference that was established in 1998 by combining a number of existing and new conf- ences. This year it comprised five conferences (CC, ESOP, FASE, FOSSACS, TACAS), 17 satellite workshops (AVIS, BYTECODE, CEES, CLASE, CMSB, COCV, FAC, FESCA, FINCO, GCW-DSE, GLPL, LDTA, QAPL, SC, SLAP, TGC, UITP), seven invited lectures (not including those that were specific to the satellite events), and several tutorials. We received over 550 submissions to the five conferences this year, giving acceptance rates below 30% for each one. Congratulations to all the authors who made it to the final program! I hope that most of the other authors still found a way of participating in this exciting event and I hope you will continue submitting. The events that comprise ETAPS address various aspects of the system - velopment process, including specification, design, implementation, analysis and improvement. The languages, methodologies and tools which support these - tivities are all well within its scope. Different blends of theory and practice are represented, with an inclination towards theory with a practical motivation on the one hand and soundly based practice on the other. Many of the issues involved in software design apply to systems in general, including hardware systems,and the emphasison software is not intended to be exclusive.