Editorial Foreword to the ECOC 2023 Special Issue

The European Conference on Optical Communications (ECOC) is one of the leading conferences in the field of optical communications and its related topics. The 49
^th
edition took place from 1
^st
–5
^th
October 2023 in Glasgow, Scotland. The conference attracted more than 1400 attendees and received nearly 750 regular paper submissions from 46 countries. The co-located exhibition featured 335 exhibitors and over 6700 visitors from 88 countries.