GIREP was founded in 1966 with the aim to organise meetings between physicists, physics educators and physics teachers about physics education and physics education research. During the succeeding 42 years the GIREP Conference has been established as the main international event in the field of Physics Education. Conferences are held every two years. The latest have been those in Barcelona (2000), Lund (2002), Ostrava (2004), Amsterdam (2006) and Cyprus (2008). The University of Udine took the initiative to organise the GIREP Seminar in 2001. The seminars also became a biannual event (Udine 2003, Ljubljana 2005 and Opatija 2007). The Opatija seminar was organised jointly with EPEC, a successful format which forms the pattern for the forthcoming conference in Leicester. More information about GIREP and how to become a member can be found at: http://www.girep.org