International Conference on Damage Assessment of Structures (DAMAS) is one of the most influential conferences in the field of structural damage assessment in the world and it is held every two years. The previous thirteen conferences were successfully held in Pescara (1995), Sheffield (1997), Dublin (1999), Cardiff (2001), Southampton (2003), Gdansk (2005), Torino (2007), Beijing (2009), Oxford (2011), Dublin (2013), Ghent (2015), Kita Kyushu (2017), Porto (2019). The 14th International Conference on Damage Assessment of Structures (DAMAS 2021) was successfully held in Shanghai from 29 October to 1 November and it was organized and hosted by our school as well as the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and was co-organized by Tsinghua University, East China University of Science and Technology, Ningxia University, Hunan Institute of Engineering and University of Huddersfield. Prof. Zhike Peng in School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University was the DAMAS chairman and Prof. Shan-Tung Tu, who is an Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, at East China University of Science and Technology was the DAMAS co-chairman. Over 550 academic scholars, experts and industry experts attended the online and offline DAMAS conference.

DAMAS 2021 provided an excellent academic exchange platform and covered all research fields related to damage assessment of micro/nano structures, composite materials, smart materials and structures, engineering structures and systems, including structural design and reliability, dynamic simulation and numerical simulation, dynamic analysis and optimization, detection methods and signal processing, fault diagnosis and health evaluation, and experimental and industrial case studies.