Systems analysis and design (SAND) has been the central field of research and education in the area of management information systems (MIS) or, as it is called more frequently in Europe, Business Informatics, almost from its origins. SAND continuously attracts the attention of both academia and business. The rapid progress of information and communications technology naturally generates the requirements for new generations of SAND methods, techniques and tools. Therefore, international thematic conferences and symposia have become widely accepted forums for exchanging of concepts, solutions and experiences in SAND. In particular, the Association for Information Systems (AIS) is undertaking the initiative towards SAND’s international development.

Therefore, there are three organizers of the 4th EuroSymposium on Systems Analysis and Design are as follows

• SIGSAND – AIS Special Interest Group on Systems Analysis and Design
• PLAIS – the Polish Chapter of AIS
• The Department of Business Informatics of University of Gdansk, Poland

SIGSAND is the Association for Information Systems (AIS) Special Interest Group on Systems Analysis and Design. SIGSAND provides services such as annual symposia, news, research and teaching tracks at major IS conferences, listserv and special issues in journals. The EuroSymposia were initiated by AIS Vice President Prof. Keng Siau as the SIGSAND-Europe Initiative.

The Polish Chapter of Association for Information Systems (PLAIS) was established in 2006 as the joint initiative of Prof. Claudia Loebbecke, former President of AIS and Prof. Stanisław Wrycza, University of Gdańsk, Poland. PLAIS co-organizes international and domestic conferences on systems analysis and design as well as on Business Informatics and Software Engineering, e.g., BIR 2008 – International Conference on Business Informatics Research and CAiSE’12 – International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering.

The Department of Business Informatics of the University of Gdansk is conducting intensive teaching and research activities. Some of its academic manuals are bestsellers in Poland. The Department is also active internationally, organizing conferencs including the 10th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2002), The 7th International Conference on Perspectives in Business Informatics Research (BIR 2008), The 8th International Conference on European Distance and E-learning Network (EDEN 2009) and 24th Conference on Advance Information Systems Engineering (CAiSE 2012). The Department is the partner of the European Research Center for Information Systems consortium.