AIM is glad to announce the 9th European Coke and Ironmaking Congress (ECIC) to be held in Bardolino, Italy, on 16-18 October 2024. ECIC 2024 will focus on the newest technologies in coke making, sintering, pelletizing, pyrolizing the biomasses and ironmaking (blast furnaces, direct reduction and carbon-based smelting processes). The 2025 goal of carbon neutrality and the related intensive efforts of the steel industry will affect significantly the technologies for iron ore reduction. In this perspective, the shortage of iron ores matching the requirement for direct reduction by gas and for melting in electric arc furnace makes important proposal of new technologies and devices that can ensure the carbon neutrality even for the coal based routes. This congress will focus on technologies that can achieve such a goal improving the efficiency of the existing process, applying the devices that avoid a net emission of green house gases and to point out new routes based on exploitation of biomasses whose net emission is intrinsically neutral.