The research of holonic and agent-based systems is developing rapidly, as is the community around this R&D topic. Despite the fact that real-life practical implementations of such systems remain surprisingly rare, the leaders in different branches of industry feel that the holonic and agent-based systems represent the only way to manage and control very complex, highly distributed systems in the future. The relevant R&D gains more and more support from both industry as well as academic sources. Quite naturally, the number of scientific events aimed at the subject field is also growing...