There are no unifying theories for the description of the self-association and colloidal properties of anisotropic nanoparticles in gels and organized materials despite the fact that this process is controlling the bottom-up engineering of nanoparticle systems. The extra complexity added by the anisotropy of many nanoparticles poses further complexity to this description and demands both theoretical and experimental break-throughs. Since most of these systems carry a considerable charge it is also necessary to follow the theoretical development in polyelectrolyte theories. The purpose of the present symposia is to bring together world leading theoreticians and experimentalist to collect the state of the art of these systems and to create new contacts and co-operations as well as sharing recent theoretical and experimental results.