The international congress “Singularities in Geometry and Topology”, organized by the “Unité de Recherche Associée au CNRS” Geometry, Analysis and Topology of Lille (France) was held from 3 to 8 June 1991. More than 230 researchers and students coming from 28 countries met to discuss themes concerning singularities in Geometry, Algebraic Topology and Algebraic Geometry. The Scientific Committee of the congress was composed of A. Aroca (Valladolid), H. Hamm (Münster), J.L. Koszul (Grenoble), B. Teissier (ENS, Paris), A. Verjovsky (ICTP, Trieste) and C.T.C. Wall (Liverpool). The congress was sponsored by the CNRS, the French Ministry of Education, the French Ministry of Research and Technology, the European Project “Singularities”, the Region “Nord-Pas de Calais”, the Lille and Villeneuve d'Ascq Municipalities and the local University Authorities: the “Université des Sciences et Techniques de Lille-Flandres-Artois”, its Mathematics Department and the “Geometry-Analysis-Topology” Unit of the CNRS. There were many participants from Eastern European countries and for many of them it was the first opportunity to take part in a congress outside their country.

The Scientific Committe proposed 12 plenary conferences and 36 specialized conferences. In addition, a system of free conferences was organized in such a way that everyone willing to speak had the possibility of giving a short talk. These free conferences have been published in a special issue of the IRMA publications of Lille University.