Welcome to the 21st edition of the International Conference on Network Protocols (ICNP) in Göttingen, Germany. We are pleased you can join us in the historic building of the Mathematical Institute at the Georg-August-University, a place that was the home to pioneers such as David Hilbert, Felix Klein, Emmy Noether and Carl-Friedrich Gauss. At this renowned university where the first telegraph was invented by its professors Carl-Friedrich Gauss and Wilhelm Weber and used to communicate with each other using a three kilometer wire between two office buildings 180 years ago, we are looking forward to an inspiring four days of workshops, paper presentations, discussions and social networking among researchers from all over the world with an interest in modern computer networking protocols.