text: The Heart of Europe Bio-Crystallography Meeting (short HEC-Meeting) is an annual academic conference on structural biology, in particular protein crystallography. Researchers from universities, other research institutions and industry from Austria, Czech Republic, Germany and Poland meet to present and discuss current topics of their research. The talks are predominantly given by PhD students (doctoral students). An exception is the invited HEC lecture, which is held by a renowned scientist of the research field. The format of the HEC meeting has been adopted from the eleven years older [http://regiomeeting.eu/ Rhine-Knee Regional Meeting on Structural Biology].