The goal of this conference is to bring together experts and young researchers, mathematicians and physicists, scientists with different backgrounds and different takes on integrable systems theory, to discuss the latest achievements in this dynamic field and to point at future research directions within the discipline. At the same time the meeting will serve to honor Alexander Its, a world renowned expert in the field, for his many groundbreaking contributions to the theory of integrable systems over the past 40 years, on the occasion of his 70th birthday.