Introductory Essay of COIN@MALLOW'009

The COIN (Coordination, Organizations, Institutions and Norms) workshop series began in 2005 with a single satellite workshop at AAMAS in Utrecht [1]. Since then two meetings have been organized each year, with one typically attached to AAMAS and the other to another major conference in a different continent from AAMAS [2], [3], [4]. This year, exceptionally, a third event is being held in support of the MALLOW federated workshops. Each meeting—particularly those not associated with AAMAS—aims to build links to an associated research theme to explore and encourage opportunities for cross-fertilization.