Due to our increasing concerns relating to climate change and limited fossil resources, the bio-based production of chemicals, fuels, and materials has been drawing much attention worldwide. The Korean government announced ‘‘Low carbon, green growth’’ as the most important national agenda in 2008. It is believed that biotechnology will be playing increasingly important roles in achieving ‘green growth’ or growth with minimal environmental impact, throughout the world. The Bioenergy Korea Conference 2012 International Symposium was held on 24–25 April 2012 in Gwangju, Korea [1]. This special issue contains 23 selected papers among those presented at the conference. The topics covered include, but are not limited to, biomass cultivation, biomass pretreatment, and biomass conversion in the field of bioenergy. Also, several papers on general enzyme technology and bioconversion processes are presented. As the field of bioenergy is rapidly growing from traditional forms of bioethanol and biodiesel production to more advanced biofuel production, it is expected that new biotechnologies will continue to emerge over the coming years. Most of the papers in the special issue are contributed by Korean biotechnologists, and thus, will provide readers with a glimpse of research activities relating to bioenergy which are current in Korea. This year’s symposium had a particular focus on bioprocessing aspects of bioenergy. We currently face a great challenge as we attempt to move toward a sustainable biofuel based society, while not compromising economic stabilities. We, biotechnologists, will be a key player in instigating and overseeing this transition by providing solutions for the cost-effective production of biofuels as well as the realization of sustainable bio-based chemical industries. We would like to end by thanking all contributors to this special issue, as well as the anonymous reviewers who kindly provided their comments toward the improvement of the manuscripts. We expect that a further special issue covering state-of-the art advancements in bioenergy research will be published in the future. We hope that you will enjoy reading the papers presented in this special issue. The International Symposium was an international academic conference held simultaneously with New Recycled Energy Exhibition of Sweet Fair 2012, which was held by the Kimdaejung Convention Center in Gwangju, Korea. Since its inauguration in 2008, this was the fifth international event of the Bioenergy Conference and we were immensely honored to have the event held within Gwangju. In addition, we would also like to offer our great appreciation to the Chairman of the Advisory Committee, Professor Young Je Yoo of Seoul National University, and to the 11 Advisory Members, Members of organizing committee, Professor Eunki Kim of Inha University and 25 members, for their services in the planning section. The success of this conference was undoubtedly due to their dedication and cooperation. D.-H. Park (&) Department of Biotechnology and Bioengineering, Interdisciplinary Program of Graduate School for Bioenergy and Biomaterials, Chonnam National University, Gwangju, Republic of Korea e-mail: dhpark@chonnam.ac.kr