The Evolution Arti?cielle cycle of conferences was originally initiated as a forum for the French-speaking evolutionary computation community. Previous EA m- tings were held in Toulouse (EA'94), Brest (EA'95, LNCS 1063), N DEGREES?mes (EA'97, LNCS 1363), Dunkerque (EA'99, LNCS 1829), and ?nally, EA 2001 was hosted by the Universite de Bourgogne in the small town of Le Creusot, in an area of France renowned for its excellent wines. However, the EA conferences have been receiving more and more papers from the international community: this conference can be considered fully internat- nal, with...

The Arti?cial Evolution conference was originally conceived as a forum for the French-speaking Evolutionary Computation community, but has of late been acquiring an European audience, with several papers from Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain... However, AE remains as intended a small and friendly gathering, which will continue to be held every two years. Previous AE meets were held in Toulouse, Brest, and N DEGREES ?mes. This year, the hosting was done by the LIL (Laboratoire d'Informatique du Littoral) in the not-so-cold city of Dunkerque. The invited talk on "Fitness Landscapes and...