Proceedings of the14th European Microscopy Congress, held in Aachen, Germany, 1-5 September 2008. Jointly organised by the European Microscopy Society (EMS), the German Society for Electron Microscopy (DGE) and the local microscopists from RWTH Aachen University and the Research Centre Julich, the congress brings together scientists from Europe and from all over the world. The scientific programme covers all recent developments in the three major areas of instrumentation and methods, materials science and life science.