Liquid Metal Processing and Casting, represents a key stage in the development of many metallic materials, providing the final product with many of its intrinsic properties. During the last thirty years, an increasingly large number of scientific papers have been devoted to the characterization of the various processes involved, detailing both sophisticated experimental measurements and the mathematical modeling and numerical simulation of processes. LMPC2003 Conference, held in Nancy, France, in September 2003 under the auspices of Societe Francaise de Metallurgie et des Materiaux (SF2M), was the fifth in the series of “International Symposium on Liquid Metal Processing and Casting,” previously held in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The presentations and ensuing discussions covered a range of topics from theoretical mathematical models of microstructural evolution to industrial-scale experimental investigations. Although many metallic systems were studied, the focus was on specialty steels, nickel-base superalloys, and titanium alloys. From the 48 papers presented at the conference, 21 were selected and reviewed for publication in this special issue of the Journal of Materials Science to highlight the key scientific and engineering advances in the field. This selection shows the intense interest in the advanced modeling of the processes with most studies including results from industrial trials for validation. The significant advances in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods to include the additional physics of solidification, segregation and electromagnetic forces are illustrated by their application to simulation of processes ranging from consumable electrode remelting (VAR-ESR) to induction skull melting, nucleated casting and spray deposition. As with all modeling exercises, the quality of the output is dependent on the accuracy of the input parameters. Since our knowledge of both the physical and chemical properties of hightemperature systems is still very sparse, a few papers address this problem with approaches ranging from high temperature experimental measurements to “first principle” computations.