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\section*{Foreword}

The international workshop entitled {\it New Trends in HERA Physics 2003} took
place from 28 September to 3 October 2003 at Ringberg Castle, which overlooks
Lake Tegernsee in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps, one of the most
picturesque locations to be found in the whole of Germany.
The castle was built during the first half of the twentieth century by Duke
Luitpold in Bavaria (Herzog Luitpold in Bayern), a member of the Wittelsbach
family which ruled Bavaria over 800 years, and his friend Friedrich
Attenhuber, an all-round artist, architect, and interior decorator.
The castle is entirely their creation, from the massive Renaissance-inspired
exterior right down to the fittings and furniture, which, in every detail,
were designed by Attenhuber himself and executed by native craftsmen.
Attenhuber also painted every single picture exhibited in the castle.
He found his models in the farmhouses around Lake Tegernsee.
The castle embodies all trends of art and styles which dominated the first
half of last century, combined with local Alpine originality and the
individual creative power of its constructors. 
According to the Duke's last will, the castle passed into the hands of the
Max Planck Society after his death, in 1973.
The castle was then transformed into a conference venue, where scientists can
exchange their latest ideas and discuss problems with their colleagues from
all over the world in beautiful surroundings and in a relaxed mountain
atmosphere, high above the daily business activities.

This was the fourth event in a series of Ringberg workshops on HERA physics,
which was started in 1997 and was continued in 1999 and 2001.
In fact, at the end of these workshops, many participants expressed the
opinion that this was a successful endeavour to bring theorists and
experimentalists together in order to interpret the latest HERA data, and that
it would be useful to organize a follow-up workshop in the same spirit.

On the occasion of the 2003 Ringberg workshop, forty-one experts of
elementary-particle physics, both theorists and experimentalists, from
twenty-three universities and research institutions in fourteen countries
congregated to present their latest results on the various aspects of HERA
physics.
Specifically, there were sixteen theorists and twenty-five experimentalists,
the latter representing the H1, HERMES, and ZEUS collaborations at HERA.
The topics included:
proton structure function;
polarized $ep$ scattering;
photoproduction of hadrons, jets, and prompt photons;
final states in deep-inelastic scattering, with special emphasis on
hadrons, jets, resonances, and gluonic mesons;
heavy-flavour and charmonium production;
elastic and diffractive $ep$ scattering;
new physics at HERA;
and plans for HERA-II and beyond.
We hope that the high-energy-physics community will benefit from these 
proceedings, in which the ongoing efforts in understanding the nature of the
strong interactions, with particular emphasis on HERA physics, are documented.

We wish to thank all our friends and colleagues who have contributed to these
proceedings.
We are indebted to the workshop secretary, Mrs.\ Rosita Jurgeleit, for her
assistance before, during, and after the workshop and to Dr.\ Annette
Holtkamp for her technical assistance in the editorial work.
The local costs at Ringberg Castle and the costs for the publication
and dissemination of these proceedings were covered in equal parts by the
Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron at Hamburg and the Max-Planck-Institut f\"ur
Physik at Munich, which we gratefully acknowledge.

\bigskip

\centerline{Hamburg, January 2004\hfill}

\smallskip

\centerline{\sc\hskip8cm G\"unter Grindhammer\hfill}
\centerline{\sc\hskip8cm Bernd A. Kniehl\hfill}
\centerline{\sc\hskip8cm Gustav Kramer\hfill}
\centerline{\sc\hskip8cm Wolfgang Ochs\hfill}


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