VECPAR is an international conference series dedicated to the promotion and advancement of all aspects of high-performance computing for computational science, as an industrial technique and academic discipline, extending the fr- tier of both the state of the art and the state of practice. The audience and participants of VECPAR are researchers in academic departments, government laboratories and industrial organizations. There is now a permanent website for the conference series inhttp: //vecpar.fe.up.pt where the history of the conference is described. The8theditionofVECPARwasorganizedinToulouse(France), June24-27, 2008. It was the third time the conference was celebrated outside Porto after Valencia (Spain) in2004andRio deJaneiro(Brazil)in 2006. Theconferenceprogrammeconsistedof6invitedtalksand53acceptedpapers out of 73 contributions that were initially submitted. The major themes are divided into: - Large-ScaleSimulationsandNumericalAlgorithmsinComputerScienceand Engineering (aerospace, earth, environment, ?nance, geoscience) - Computing in Healthcare and Biosciences - Multiscale and Multiphysics Problems - Cluster Computing and Grid Computing - Data-Centric and High-Productivity Computing - Cooperative Engineering - Problem-Solving Environments - Imaging and Graphics Twoworkshops, inadditiontotutorials, wereorganizedbeforetheconference: HPDGrid 2008-InternationalWorkshoponHigh-PerformanceDataMana- ment in Grid Environments on June 24 and Sparse Days at CERFACS on June 23 and 24. The most signi?cant contributions are made available in the present book, edited after the conference and after a second review of all orally presented papers at VECPAR 2008 and at the worksh