Starting in the late 1980s, the CAiSE series of conferences has established a platform for presenting and exchanging results of design-oriented research in - formation systems. In addition to the presentation of new information systems techniques, recent years have seen the rise of empirical validation of such te- niques. There is also increasing attention for industry participation. The 21st CAiSE conference, held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, during June 8-12, 2009, continued this tradition. The theme of CAiSE 2009 was "Information Systems for Business Innova- on." Due to the widespread use of the Web, businesses innovate their propo- tions to customers and come up with new IT-enabled services. Such innovation requires understanding of business and technology in an integrated way. Mul- disciplinary research areas such as service science, networked enterprises, and social networking are paying attention to IT and business innovation. This t- me wasevidentbothinthe pre-conferenceworkshopsandinthe invitedspeakers of the conference. The ?rst two days consisted of pre-conference workshops on business process modelling, modelling methods, requirements engineering, organizational mod- ling, interoperabilityandcooperation, the knowledgeindustry, ontologies, gov- nance, Web information systems, business-IT alignment, legal aspects, systems of things and domain engineering. The conference proper was combined with a doctoralconsortiumwherePhDstudentscouldpresentanddiscusstheirresearch plans and with an industrial event with presentations and exhibitions. Four invited speakers shed light on the role of ontologies in business, p- cess mining, business networking and IT entrepeneurship. Highlights of the conference included a concert and dinner in the world-famous Concertgebouw building and a reception in the Muziekgebouw aan het IJ in Amsterdam harbor.

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