In June 2003 the European Real Estate Society (ERES) celebrated its tenth anniversary by holding its annual conference in Helsinki, Finland. The conference was organised by Hanna Kaleva and Olli Olkkonen from KTI (The Finnish Institute of Real Estate Economics) with strong support from their KTI colleagues, the wider Finnish real estate community and the many sponsors of the conference. The Helsinki conference attracted over 350 participants from 31 countries with over 180 papers presented. This special edition of the Journal of Property Investment and Finance contains the winner of the first annual Gerald Brown Memorial Prize, sponsored by Emerald, for the best paper presented on Real Estate Investment and Valuation at ERES 2003 and includes three other article presented at the conference. For more information on the European Real Estate Society, membership, conferences and initiatives please visit our website www.eres.org.