The 27th Leeds-Lyon Symposium on Tribology was held at the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon, 5-8 September 2000. The central theme was: 'Tribology Research: From Model Experiment to Industrial Problem: A century of efforts in mechanics, materials science and physico-chemistry'. To celebrate the Year 2000, the organisers tried to achieve two different goals. First, to bring together contributions from the three major scientific fields that make up the Tribological community: mechanics, physico-chemistry and materials science. The second goal was to attract contributions ranging from complex industrial problems to model experiments. The conference began with two keynote lectures, the first being a detailed technical lecture on the dynamic behaviour of an elastic shaft supported by hydrodynamic bearings. The second was an overview of first principles multi-scale modelling of physicochemical aspects of tribology. Both of these interesting lectures are included in the proceedings volume.