The 11th International Symposium of Geotechnical Aspects of Underground Construction in Soft Ground (IS-Macau 2024) was held at the University of Macau (UM). The symposium was jointly organised by UM, Technical Committee 204 (TC204) of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE), the Civil Engineering Laboratory of Macau, and the Macau Association for Geotechnical Engineering. More than 150 delegates from 15 countries and regions, including the UK, Norway, Denmark, Italy, Dubai, Singapore, Japan, mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao, attended the symposium to exchange views and promote cooperation on geotechnical aspects of underground construction in soft ground.

The honorary chairs of IS-Macau 2024 are Ao Peng Kong, president of the Board of Directors of the Civil Engineering Laboratory of Macau, and Giulia Viggiani, chair of ISSMGE TC204. The general chairs are Zhou Wanhuan, associate dean of FST and head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UM, and Xu Tao, associate professor in the School of Transportation at Southeast University. The opening ceremony was also attended by Lyesse Laloui, vice president of ISSMGE Europe; Adam Bezuijen, former chair of ISSMGE TC204; Wout Broere, chair of the National Structural Integrity Research Committee on Immersed Tunnels of the Netherlands and editor-in-chief of the journal Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology; Chen Renpeng, vice president of Hunan University; and Wu Wei, editor-in-chief of the journal Acta Geotechnica.

The first International Symposium on Geotechnical Aspects of Underground Construction in Soft Ground was held in 1994 in New Delhi, India. The subsequent nine editions were held in London, UK (1996); Tokyo, Japan (1999); Toulouse, France (2002); Amsterdam, Netherlands (2005); Shanghai, China (2008); Rome, Italy (2011); Seoul, South Korea (2014); Sao Paulo, Brazil (2017); and Cambridge, UK (2022), respectively.