ESCAPE-20 is the most recent in a series of conferences that serves as a forum for engineers, scientists, researchers, managers and students from academia and industry to present and discuss progress being made in the area of "Computer Aided Process Engineering" (CAPE). CAPE covers computer-aided methods, algorithms and techniques related to process and product engineering. The ESCAPE-20 scientific program reflects the strategic objectives of the CAPE Working Party: to check the status of historically consolidated topics by means of their industrial application and to evaluate their emerging issues.