I am pleased to announce that applications are now open for the BCA/CCP4 Summer School in Protein Crystallography to be held at Diamond Light Source from Sunday 21st August to Friday 26th August 2016 Applications will close Friday 13th May. The registration fee of the school has been kept low due to the generous sponsorship of the BCA and CCP4. Note that up to 10 free places are available to BBSRC funded students. For a draft programme and application details see: http://www.diamond.ac.uk/Home/Events/2016/BCA-Summer-School.html The BCA/CCP4 Protein Crystallography Summer School is intended for students and researchers new to crystallography. Its dual aims are to provide comprehensive training in crystallography and to promote best practise within the British crystallographic community. The lectures cover the gamut of techniques required for a structure solution, from protein expression through to structure validation. Intensively supervised computer tutorials enable students to relate the theory presented in the lectures to practice. Although CCP5 programmes will primarily be used in these tutorials, the aim will be to approach crystallographic questions in a software-agnostic manner. There will also be a crystal manipulation and cooling workshop. (Note that the course is scheduled during Diamond synchrotron downtime, so there will not be active data collection at the Diamond beamlines.) We recognise that an active social programme plays a role in enabling students to make links that may be maintained throughout a research career. There will be a conference dinner, and a number of other events, including a boat trip on the Thames from Oxford. Airlie McCoy