The 21st Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation, MED'13, comes back to its birthplace, Chania, Crete. MED'13 aims at providing a unique opportunity for the academic and industrial community, federal and state government, funding agencies, the private sector, qualified representatives from other organizations, to address new challenges, share solutions and discuss future research directions in the area of control and automation. Focused interests of diverse groups involved in basic and applied research and development will be discussed. A broad range of topics will be covered in the Conference, following current trends of combining control/systems theory with software/communication technologies, as well as new developments in robotics and mechatronics, with the goal of strengthening cooperation of control and automation scientists with industry.