Editorial summary of the EXRS 2006 conference

The 12th European X-ray Spectrometry Conference was held between June 19 and 23, 2006, in Paris, France. The organizers were the Laboratoire National Henri Becquerel, CEA, and the Ecole Normale Sup ´ erieure de Lyon, CNRS. The venue of the conference was the Cite Internationale Universitaire, the famous complex of the Universite de Paris built between the two World Wars as an international meeting ground for knowledge and peace. The 35-ha park surrounding the Maison Internationale, which hosted the meeting, is a place for students from over 125 nations to get together, and is spread out among 37 turn-of-the-century residences.