On behalf of the Program Committee, it is a pleasure for us to introduce the proceedingsofthe1stEuropeanAcrossGridsConference.Thiseventwasheldin SantiagodeCompostela,Spain,February13-14,2003.Theconference,organized by the University of Santiago (USC), the University of A Coruna (UDC) and theSupercomputingCenterofGalicia(CESGA),waspromotedbytheEuropean CrossGrid project and supported by the GridStart Cluster. The idea of organizing this event was born within the CrossGrid com- nity. CrossGrid is developing its middleware, tools and applications in colla- ration with DataGrid and GridLab and is open to collaboration with other Grid projects.USC,UDCandCESGAenthusiasticallysupportedtheconferenceidea. We consider the Across Grids Conference to be an important contribution to the objectives of the GridStart project. The aim of this 1st European Across Grids Conference was to forge an - nual forum in which researchers linked to European projects could present their research results in the ?eld of Grid computing. This conference does not - tend to replace the Global Grid Forum. However, we do ?nd that research being conducted within European projects deserves a special meeting in which all - searchers participating in the Grid development challenge can exchange ideas, experiencesand,chie?
y,results.Wewouldlikethee?ortoforganizingthisforum to ?nd continuity in the following years in other European cities. Our ?rst interest was to bring together as many European Grid projects as possible. We believe we have been successful in attaining this aim. Papers and posters from DataGrid, CrossGrid, Damien, DataTAG, GridWay and GridLab were presented, as well as results of research funded by national Grid projects, including NORDUGRID and several Spanish Grid initiatives, such as RedeGrid.